The King is Dead (18 page)

He dropped the little automatic into Judah's hand.

He could not help feeling an embarrassed pity as Judah transferred the empty gun to his right hand and took a firm grip on the stock, his forefinger curled at the trigger. Judah was intent now, making small economical movements, as if what he was about to do was of the greatest importance and required the utmost in concentration.

He pushed downward with his left hand on the desk top and got to his feet.

Ellery's glance never left those hands.

Now Judah raised his left forearm. He stared down at the second hand of his wristwatch.

Thirty seconds.

His right hand, with the empty gun, was in plain view. There was nothing he could do with it, no sleight-of-hand, not a trick, not a bluff, not an anything. And if he could? If, by an unreasonable miracle, he could materialize a cartridge and load the gun with it with Ellery at his elbow, what could he do with it? Shoot Ellery? Hypnotize Max'l? And if he got out into the corridor, what then? A locked door of safe steel. A hallful of armed, alert men. And even then, no key.

Fifteen seconds.

What was he waiting for?

Judah raised the Walther.

Max'l moved convulsively, and Ellery almost sprang. He had to check his own reflex. Max'l uttered a growly chuckle, rather horrible to hear, and relaxed against the door again.

It was too stupid. There was nothing Judah could do with that empty little gun, nothing. Too an obscure curiosity stayed Ellery. There was nothing Judah could do, and yet he was preparing to do something. What?

Seven seconds.

Judah's right arm came up until it was straight out before him. He was apparently taking aim at something, getting his sight set for a shot he couldn't possibly fire. A shot he couldn't possibly fire at a wall he couldn't possibly penetrate.

Five seconds.

A theoretical extension of Judah's right arm with the Walther at the end of it would make a line through the wall of his study, across the corridor, through the wall of the Confidential Room, into the approximate centre of that room and — perhaps — the torso of a seated man.

Three seconds.

Judah was ‘aiming' at his brother King.

He was mad.

Two seconds.

Judah watched his upheld wrist.

One second.

And now, Judah?

At the tick of midnight, Judah's finger squeezed the trigger.

Had the little Walther flamed and bucked at that instant Ellery could not have been so astounded. A gun that went off in spite of the impossibility of a gun's going off would at the least have made reasonable the unreasonable play that went before. It would have been a physical miracle, but it would have given Judah's actions the dignity of logic.

The little Walther, however, neither flamed nor bucked. It merely went
click
! and was quiet again. No roar reverberated through the room, no hole appeared in the wall, no voice cried out.

Ellery squinted at the man.

He was incredible, this Judah. He was not acting like a man who had just pulled the trigger of a gun that could not and did not go off. He was acting like a man who had seen the flame and felt the buck and heard the roar and the cry. He was acting like a man who had successfully fired a shot.

Judah lowered the Walther slowly and with great care put it down on his desk.

The he sank into the chair and reached for the bottle of Segonzac. He uncorked it slowly, slowly poured several ounces of cognac, slowly and steadily drank, the bottle still gripped in his left hand. Then he flung bottle and glass aside and, as they crashed to the floor, he put his face down on the desk and wept.

Ellery found himself going over the facts indignantly. No bullet in the gun. A wall, a corridor, then another wall two feet thick made of reinforced concrete. And a man safely beyond it. Safely. Unless … unless …

Impossible.
Impossible
.

Ellrey heard a harsh voice, hardly recognizable as his own. ‘You act as if you shot your brother.'

‘I did.'

The words were sobby. Thick with grief.

As if you really killed him, I mean.'

He didn't understand. He couldn't have said —

‘I did.'

So he had said it. Ellery passed his hand over his mouth. The man
was
insane.

‘You did what, Judah?'

‘King is dead.'

‘Did you hear what he said?' Ellery glanced bitterly across at Max'l.

Max'l tapped his temple, grinning.

Ellery took hold of Judah's shoulder in a burst of annoyance and pulled him upright, holding him against the back of the chair.

Crying, all right.

He let go. Judah stopped crying to bite his lower lip with his uneven, stained teeth. He fumbled for something in his back pocket. His hand reappeared with a handkerchief. He blew his nose into it and relaxed, sighing.

‘They can do what they want with me,' he said in a high monotone. ‘But I had to do it. You don't know what he was. What he was planning. I had to stop him. I had to.'

Ellery picked up the Walther. Glared at it.

He tossed it back on the desk and strode across the room. He said stridently to Max'l, ‘Get out of my way.'

He unlocked the door.

The corridor was at peace. The Inspector and Abel Bendigo were leaning against the door of the Confidential Room, talking in lively voices. The guards lounged in visible relief.

‘Oh, Ellery.' The Inspector looked around. ‘Well, that's that. — What's the matter? You're pale as a ghost.'

‘Is Judah all right?' asked Abel quickly.

‘Yes.' Ellery gripped his father's arm. ‘Did … anything happen?'

‘Happen? Not a thing, son.'

‘You didn't hear … anything?'

‘What?'

‘Well … a shot.'

‘Of course not.'

‘Nobody's gone in or out of the Room?'

‘No.'

‘The door's remained shut — locked?'

‘Certainly.' His father stared at him.

Abel, the guards …

Ellery felt like a fool. He was furious with Judah Bendigo. Not merely a lunatic — a malicious lunatic. Still …

He stepped up to the big steel door, looked at it.

The men around him watched him, puzzled.

Ellery knocked.

After a moment he knocked again, harder.

Nothing happened.

‘There's no use standing there waiting,' said a tired voice.

Ellery whirled. Judah had come out into the corridor. Max'l had both of Judah's arms locked behind his back. Max'l was grinning.

‘What does he mean?' asked the Inspector, nettled.

Ellery began to pound on the steel door with both fists. ‘Mr. Bendigo! Are you all right?'

There was no answer. Ellery tried to turn the knob. It remained immovable.

‘Mr. Bendigo!' shouted Ellery. ‘Unlock this door!'

Abel Bendigo was cracking his knuckles and muttering. ‘He would go into his high-and-mighty act. But why doesn't Karla …?'

‘Get me a key, somebody!'

‘Key?' Abel started. ‘Here. Here, Mr. Queen. Oh, why doesn't he —? He'll roar, but … Here!'

Ellery snatched the gold case from Abel. It was a duplicate of King's. He jabbed the key in the lock, twisted, jerked, heaved …

Karla was lying on the floor beside her husband's desk. Her eyes were shut.

King Bendigo was seated in the leather swivel chair behind his desk, and his eyes were open.

But the way he sat and the way he looked made Ellery's blood stop running.

Bendigo was slumped in the chair off the perpendicular, one shirt-sleeved arm between his knees and the other dangling over-side.

His head lolled back on his shoulder and his mouth was open, too.

The white silk of his shirt, on the left breast, showed a stain roughly circular in shape, and in colour bright red.

In the centre of the red circle there was a small, black, bullet hole.

11

The first thing Ellery did had nothing to do with miracles at all. He turned to Abel Bendigo and said, ‘Do you want Colonel Spring in on this?'

He was barring the doorway, arms and legs spread. Unbelieving eyes stared over his shoulders into the room.

‘Mr. Bendigo.' He tapped Abel's arm and repeated the question.

‘No. My God, no.' Abel came to life. ‘Don't let the guards in! Just —'

Ellery pulled Abel in. He pulled Judah in; Max'l came along as if he were on the end of a line. He pulled his father in.

He shut the door in the faces of the guards.

He tried the door. Locked. Automatically.

Ellery went over to the man in the chair. Inspector Queen dropped on his knees beside Karla. The brothers remained near the door, almost touching. Judah looked exhausted; he leaned against a filing case. Abel kept mumbling something to himself. Max'l was stunned; there was no ferocity left in him. His breathing deposited flecks of spittle on his lips. He kept staring at the quiet figure in the chair with awe.

The Inspector looked up. ‘She didn't get it.'

‘What is it?'

‘A faint, I guess. I can't find any wound or contusion.'

Ellery reached for the telephone on King Bendigo's desk. When the operator answered, he said, ‘Dr. Storm. Emergency.'

The Inspector glanced from Ellery to the body in the chair. Then he lifted Karla very carefully and carried her over to the secretarial chair behind the typewriter-desk and laid her over the chair face down. He took off his coat and wrapped it about her. He raised her legs, keeping her head low.

‘Dr. Storm?' said Ellery. ‘This is Queen. King Bendigo has been shot. Serious chest wound, near the heart. He's not dead. Bring everything you'll need — you may not be able to move him for a while.' He hung up.

‘Not dead?' Abel took a step forward.

‘Please don't touch him, Mr. Bendigo. We can't do a thing until Dr. Storm gets here.'

Abel's face was pocked with perspiration. He kept swallowing and glancing at his brother Judah.

Where before Judah had seemed spent, as at a task executed at great physical cost, now — with the news that he had not killed successfully after all — he was dazed. His eyes mirrored some shock Ellery could not quite make out. Ellery was in no mental condition to draw a bead on subtleties, but he had the feeling that Judah had shot his bolt.

‘Max.' Ellery touched the massive arm. ‘Watch Judah.'

Max'l wiped his lips on his sleeve. He turned to Judah. His head sank into his shoulders and he took a step toward the dark man.

‘No, Max, no,' Ellery said patiently. ‘You're not to touch him. Just make sure he doesn't go near King.'

Karla moaned, rolling her head. The Inspector began to slap her cheeks. After a moment he sat her up.

She did not cry. The blood, which had rushed to her head, receded swiftly, leaving her face whiter than before. She stared across the desks at the slumped figure.

‘He's not dead, Mrs. Bendigo,' said the Inspector. ‘We're waiting for Dr. Storm. Relax, now. Take deep breaths.'

What he said apparently had no meaning for her. The man in the chair looked dead.

The door was pounded. Ellery, on his hands and knees peering under the big metal desk, sprang to his feet and raced to the door.

‘I'll open it!' he said to Abel Bendigo. ‘Keep away, please.'

He opened the door. Dr. Storm rushed by him. The corridor was crowded with guards and people of the Residence staff. A hospital emergency table was pushed through the doorway by a white-coated man, and a portable sterilizer was wheeled up by another. But Ellery refused to allow the attendants to cross the threshold. Other things were handed in; the Inspector took them while Ellery stood guard. Elbowing his way through the jam came Colonel Spring. He shouted, ‘Wait, don't shut that door!' Ellery said to Abel Bendigo over his shoulder, ‘You'd better tell him yourself.' From behind Ellery, Abel shook his head at the charging Colonel. ‘No one else, Colonel, no one else.' Ellery shut the door in Spring's set green face.

He knew the door locked automatically, but he tried it anyway.

‘You men. Help me get him on to the table.' There was nothing in Dr. Storm's voice but preoccupation. The sterilizer was going. The contents of his kit were spread out on the desk.

Under the doctor's direction they transferred the wounded man from the chair to the hospital table. His heavy body seemed without life.

‘What's the prognosis, Doctor?'

Storm waved them away. He was preparing a hypodermic.

Ellery took the small metal chair from the secretarial desk to a corner of the room, and the Inspector led Karla to it. She went submissively. She sat down, her eyes on the still figure of her husband and Dr. Storm's fingers. Max'l stood over Judah in the other corner of the room, on the same side. Neither man moved.

‘Mrs. Bendigo,' the Inspector said. He touched her. ‘Mrs. Bendigo?'

She started.

‘Who shot him?'

‘I do not know.' Suddenly she began to cry, without lowering her face or putting her hands to it. They did nothing. After a while she stopped.

‘Well, who came into the room, Mrs. Bendigo?' asked Ellery.

‘No one.'

Abel was going about the room gathering up papers — from the secretarial desk, from the floor where they had been thrown by Dr. Storm in clearing the top of King's desk. There was something pitiful about the action, a mechanical gathering up of the secrets of a man who might never put them to use … the good and faithful servant going through the motions of preserving order in a house from which all reason for order had passed away. Abel stacked the documents in precise piles, transferring them to filing cases which he opened with a key and relocked afterwards. He seemed grateful for having something to do.

‘No one passed through that door, Mrs. Bendigo?' Ellery kept looking around the room, his glance baffled and tormented.