THE merry-go-round was some distance away, across a stretch of hard-baked ground and it proved to be a very dilapidated affair. Despite herself, Margo was intrigued by the fact that Cranston had discovered a forgotten carrousel, off here in Central Park.
“Why, it’s terribly old!” exclaimed Margo. “Probably nobody has used it for years!”
“Better say hours,” suggested Cranston. “The same applies to that old stable over there.”
Looking among the trees, Margo saw the stable. It was a brick building oddly constructed. Up here they were on the level with the stable’s second story, because the first floor - which might have been termed a basement - extended down into a stone wall flanking a deep transverse.
This was rather interesting, but Margo was more impressed by the merry-go-round. She knew that one was in operation in Central Park, but this wasn’t it. This one had apparently been forgotten for years, but it was due for revival. The interior was freshly painted; so were the wooden animals, what there were of them.
Most of the carved animals were gone, but the dozen on display were spick-and-span, fresh from the paint shop where the rest were probably undergoing treatment. Lions, tigers, even a miniature giraffe gained Margo’s fascinating stare, until Cranston interrupted:
“What would you say of a merry-go-round that had a boa constrictor, Margo?”
The very thought shuddered Margo. Apparently serious, Cranston gestured toward the stable and as they walked in that direction, Margo saw traces of the very creature suggested. Cleaving its way through the dusty topsoil was a broad streak that looked exactly like a snake’s trail!
Small wonder that Margo’s shudders increased as they neared the stable, but Cranston promptly reassured her.
“It wasn’t a snake,” he stated. “It was a rope. It came out through there.”
By “there” Cranston referred to a space beneath a side door of the stable and the door itself was unusual. It looked like a door for horses, except that it was so small a horse would have had to crawl through on its knees. The door was locked, but Cranston opened it with a skeleton key and bowed Margo inside.
Right near the little door were some old stalls of miniature size, which answered Margo’s mental query.
“They must have kept ponies here, Lamont!”
“Wrong,” replied Cranston. “They kept goats. It was quite fun, years ago, for children to go riding in little wagons drawn by goats. You should delve into the history of Central Park, Margo.”
There were larger stalls on the other side of the stable, near the big door, while in a corner Cranston indicated a platform set in the stone floor.
“They kept horses in those big stalls,” he explained, “and there were a lot more downstairs. That platform is an elevator that was used to haul hay up from below.”
The wooden platform rattled when Cranston stepped upon it, but it bore his weight quite easily.
“This elevator was used last night,” declared Cranston in a tone that seemed more than mere conjecture. “A taxicab was hauled up from the floor below and sent out through the big door. Another cab came in and was lowered to the transverse level. After that the elevator was brought up again.”
Margo suddenly shook her head.
“Couldn’t be,” she insisted. “The elevator may be strong enough, but there’s no motive power to haul up anything as heavy as a taxicab.”
“I told you about the rope,” reminded Cranston. “It was hooked to the elevator.”
“But who pulled it? A dozen men?”
“The merry-go-round pulled it. That’s where the rope was attached. The rope is under the merry-go-round now, all wound around.”
With that statement, Lamont Cranston was explaining the muffed music that Phil Harley had heard the night before. Margo knew nothing about that, but she realized the importance of the cab switch.
“You mean that’s how Winslow Ames was abducted?” Margo asked.
“It’s how the job was covered up,” returned Cranston. “I think that Ames was taken along past the merry-go-round and later dropped from a bridge over the transverse into a passing truck.”
“What would the police think of that story?”
“If you would like to know,” responded Cranston, blandly, “suppose we go and find out.”
They rode in the old hack to Central Park South and there took a cab to the swank Cobalt Club where Commissioner Weston was often found late in the afternoon. The commissioner was present and Inspector Cardona with him, but when Cranston suggested his theory, it registered a total blank.
“I was thinking about the Ames case,” began Cranston. “If his cab had gone to Central Park -”
“I suppose the banshee would have gotten him,” interrupted Weston. “Only it didn’t, because there isn’t any banshee and Ames didn’t go to Central Park.”
Cardona added an opinion.
“We’re covering the park like a blanket,” the inspector claimed. “The only cab that gave us any trouble was a fellow with a flat at the entrance to a transverse. He fixed the flat and went through.”
Cranston nodded.
“Eastbound, of course.”
“That’s right,” rejoined Cardona. “When he came out the east side, he stopped to report to an officer stationed there” - Joe paused - “say what made you think he went from west to east? Do they get more flat tires on the West Side?”
“It was just a guess,” replied Cranston. “At what time was this reported?”
“The fellow started to fix the flat just before Ames left the hotel,” said Cardona, referring to a long list of reports, “so he couldn’t have had anything to do with the case. Central Park is out.”
Thus discouraged, Cranston naturally couldn’t be expected to press his theory regarding Central Park. It was after they left the Cobalt Club that Margo asked him:
“How did you know that the cab went from west to east?”
“I told Cardona why,” replied Cranston. “It was just a guess. It really didn’t matter which way the cab was headed. It happens though that there were two cabs, not just one.”
Margo’s slow nod meant that she understood more or less, so Cranston decided she should understand more.
“Two identical cabs,” Cranston explained, “even to a duplication of the license plates. The idea was to establish an alibi for both.”
“For both?”
“Of course. One was checked at the west entrance to the transverse while its driver was faking a flat tire. The time element proved that it couldn’t be the cab that took Ames from the hotel. However, that cab never completed its trip through the transverse. It swung into the old stable, was hoisted in the elevator, and went its way along the upper drive.”
“And the other cab came out below!”
“Correct. It was the cab that abducted Ames. Its driver completed the alibi that the first man had begun. His cab was brought down by the elevator to continue through the transverse.”
“Then that’s why the driver reported to the officer at the east exit!” exclaimed Margo. “He wanted to be recognized later, if necessary!”
Cranston nodded. Then:
“Above all,” he added, “the purpose was to draw all suspicion from Central Park, the place where a lot has happened and a lot more will. Well, Margo” - Cranston was glancing at his watch - “I’ll need what’s left of the afternoon. I’m going down to the Graceland Memorial Library.”
“To that mausoleum?” queried Margo. “Why?”
Cranston’s reply could have been termed a trifle cryptic.
“To acquire a few more facts concerning old New York,” Cranston announced, “and in particular that portion of Manhattan Island now known as Central Park.”