American Gun Mystery (29 page)

A
ND SO ONCE MORE
I come to what might be termed the “seventh-inning stretch” of my novels. Time out, ladies and gentlemen.

I ask in a variation of a theme I have harped on now for four years: Who killed the two horsemen in the arena of the
Colosseum?

You don’t know? Ah, but really you should. The whole story is now before you: clues galore, I give you my word; and when put together in the proper order and the inevitable deductions drawn, they point resolutely to the one and only possible criminal.

It is a point of honor with me to adhere to the Code. The Code of play-fair-with-the-reader-give-him-all-the-clues-and-withhold-nothing. I say all the clues are now in your possession. I repeat that they make an inescapable pattern of guilt.

Can you put the pieces of the pattern together and interpret what you see?

A word to the small army of well-intentioned hecklers who worry the life out of the author each time he blithely lays down a challenge. The contents of the telegram which in the story I send to Hollywood, and the contents of the reply thereto, are not necessary to your logical solution. As you shall see, a solution is possible without knowledge of either; they are merely confirmation of logical conclusions arrived at from analysis. So that actually you should be able to tell
me
what my telegram said!

—Ellery Queen

S
UNDAY EVENINGS WERE USUALLY
restful ones in the Queen household. It was on Sunday evenings that the Inspector completely relaxed, and there was a tacit rule that at such times it was forbidden to talk shop, indulge in theories about crime, mull over real cases, read detective stories, or in other way profane the atmosphere.

So after dinner that evening Ellery shut himself up in the bedroom and very quietly took up the extension telephone. He called the number of the Hotel Barclay and asked for Miss Horne.

“Ellery Queen speaking. Yes. …What are you doing this evening, Miss Horne?”

She laughed a little. “Is this an invitation?”

“I might do worse,” agreed Ellery. “May I have an unequivocal reply to the question before the House?”

“Well, sir,” she said in a stern voice, “I’m full up.”

“Which, translated, means—?”

“A gentleman has already requested my company for this evening.”

“A gentleman with curly hair?”

“How smart you are, Mr. Queen! Yes, a gentleman with curly hair. Although I’m afraid that didn’t require much of a deduction.” Then her voice broke a little. “Is it—is there anything in the wind? I’m so tired of waiting. …I mean, is it important for you to see me tonight, Mr. Queen?”

“It’s important for me to see you any night,” said Ellery gallantly. “But then I suppose it’s futile and foolhardy for me to enter the lists when a young man with such divinely spiracled hair and such facility with firearms is the other contestant. No, my dear, it isn’t really important. Some other time.”

“Oh,” she said, and was silent for a moment. “You see, Curly’s taking me to the movies this evening. He loves ’em. And I—oh, I’ve been so lonesome since. … you know.”

“I really do,” said Ellery gently. “Wild Bill going with you?”

“He’s more tactful than
that,
” she laughed. “He’s dining with Mars tonight and some other promoters. Has some new scheme up his sleeve. Poor Bill! I really don’t know—”

“I’m certainly playing in luck tonight,” said Ellery ruefully; and after a moment hung up.

He stood quite still in the bedroom, thoughtfully polishing the sparkling panes of his
pince-nez.
Then he began to move about.

Five minutes later he appeared in the living room, fully clad for the street.

“Where you going?” demanded the Inspector, looking up from the comic section of the Sunday newspaper.

“For a stroll,” said Ellery lightly. “Need a little exercise. Getting a bit convex about the abdomen, I think. I’ll be back soon.”

Inspector Queen sniffed at this obvious evasion and returned to his funny-sheet. Ellery rumpled Djuna’s hair in passing and very quickly disappeared.

It was an hour before he returned. He was flushed and a little nervous. He went into the bedroom, emerged a moment later without his overcoat, and dropped into an armchair beside the Inspector. He stared into the fire.

The. Inspector put the science page down. “Had a nice walk?”

“Oh, lovely.”

Inspector Queen stretched his slippered feet nearer the fire, sniffed snuff, and remarked without turning his head: “I’ll be jiggered if I know what to think about this case, son. I’m really—”

“No talkin’ about cases,” said Djuna, aghast, from his monkey’s perch atop a chair.

“Point well taken,” said Ellery. “Thank you, Djuna.”

“Point is,” muttered the Inspector, “I’m buffaloed. By God, I wish—What d’ye know, son?”

Ellery tossed his butt into the fire and peacefully folded his hands on his stomach. “Everything,” he said.

“What’s that?” said the Inspector blankly.

“I said I know everything.”

“Oh.” The Inspector relaxed. “Another one of your jokes. ’Course, you
always
know everything about everything. You’re one of God’s Four Hundred, you are. Isn’t a subject on which you aren’t an expert—like these book detectives—see all, know all. … bah!”

“I know everything,” said Ellery gently, “about the Horne-Woody case.”

The Inspector ceased grumbling on the instant. He sat very still. Then he began to pluck at his mustache. “You—you really mean that?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die of imbecility. The case is finished. Complete. Ain’t no more. Doggone, we’re done, pardner. …The truth is,” said Ellery with a sigh, “that you’ll be shocked by the beautiful

simplicity of it.”

Inspector Queen eyed his son for some time. There was no mockery on Ellery’s sharp features. And there
was
an air of tension, of excitement sternly repressed, about him that began insistently to stir the Inspector’s own blood. Despite himself, his eyes began to shine.

“Well,” he said abruptly, “when’s the pay-off?”

“Any time you prefer,” said Ellery slowly. “Now, if you like. I’m growing positively weary of mystery. I’d like to get this off my—conscience.”

“Then let’s go and stop gabbling,” said the Inspector; and he made for the bedroom.

Silently Ellery followed, and watched the old man slip off his slippers and pull on his shoes.

He himself put on his overcoat in more leisurely fashion. His eyes were glowing.

“Where we bound?” grunted the Inspector, going to the closet for his hat and overcoat.

“Hotel Barclay.”

The Inspector started. Ellery adjusted his scarf tenderly.

“What part of the Hotel Barclay?”

“One of the rooms.”

“Oh! Thanks.”

They left the apartment and strode down Eighty-seventh Street toward Broadway.

At the corner of Broadway they waited for the traffic light to change to green. The Inspector’s hands were jammed in his pockets. “By the way,” he said with sarcasm, “if it isn’t too much to ask—what the devil are we supposed to do in one of those rooms at the hotel?”

“Search it. You see,” murmured Ellery, “there’s one thing we overlooked.”

“Overlooked searching the Barclay?” said the Inspector sharply. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“Oh, I’ll admit there seemed no purpose in it at the time. We went over Horne’s room, and Woody’s room, and all that. …But—” He consulted his watch. It was a few minutes past midnight. “Hmm. I really think we should have reinforcements, dad. Velie, say. Good man, Velie. One moment, and I’ll buzz him.” He hurried his father across the street and darted into a drug store, emerging five minutes later with a smile. “He’ll be there waiting for us. Come on, old Grumbles.”

The Inspector went on.

Fifteen minutes later they marched across the lobby of the Hotel Barclay. It was rather crowded. In the elevator Ellery said: “Third, please.” At the third floor they left the elevator, and Ellery, taking his father’s arm, proceeded along a long corridor and paused before a certain door. Out of a shadow stepped Sergeant Velie. None of the three said anything.

Ellery raised his hand and knocked softly. There was a little murmur from behind the door, and then a hand fumbled, with the knob. An instant later the door swung open, revealing the face—the dour and for the moment startled face—of Wild Bill Grant.

T
HE THREE MEN WALKED
silently into Grant’s room, and after a moment of hesitation Grant closed the door behind them.

Staring at them from two chairs were Curly Grant and Kit Horne, both of them white-faced.

“Well?” growled Grant. “What’s it this time?”

There was a black bottle on the table, and three moist glasses.

“Having a bit of a night-cap, I note,” said Ellery pleasantly. “Well, it’s a little embarrassing, to tell the truth. But the Inspector had a notion, you see, and I couldn’t dissuade him.” He grinned shamelessly, and the Inspector scowled so hard he added a new wrinkle to his forehead. “Because, you see, the Inspector wants to search your room.”

The Inspector reddened. Sergeant Velie edged nearer the bulky figure of the showman.

“Search my room?” repeated Grant hoarsely, with a puzzled look. “What th’ devil for?”

“Go ahead, Thomas,” said the Inspector in a weary voice; and without emotion the Sergeant went to work. Grant doubled his big brown fists and for an instant seemed inclined to protest physically against the intrusion; then he shrugged and stood still.

“I shan’t, forget this, Inspect’r,” he said slowly.

Curly sprang to his feet and shoved Velie roughly aside before that worthy could open the top drawer of the bureau. “Lay off that!” he snapped, and strode forward to scowl into the Inspector’s face. “What the hell is this—Russia or somethin’? Where’s yore warrant? What right’ve ya got to come into a man’s room—?”

Wild Bill took his arm gently and propelled him half-way across the room. “Keep yore shirt on, Curly,” he said. “Go on, you. Search yore head off an’ be damned to you.”

Sergeant Velie blinked in an interested way at Curly, caught the Inspector’s nod, and went back to the bureau.

Curly flung himself down by Kit’s side like a rebuked child. Kit said nothing at all, merely stared at Ellery in a shocked way.

Ellery polished his
pince-nez
with rather more vigor than usual.

Sergeant Velie was thorough, if disrespectful. He went through’ the bureau like an impatient thief. Drawer after drawer which, opened, lay virginly neat before his eyes, was slammed shut in a state of chaos. Then he turned his attention to a wardrobe trunk. The devastation traveled. He attacked the bed. He left it a shambles.

And meanwhile the Grants, and Kit, and the Queens were silent spectators.

The closet. …The Sergeant pulled open the door, rasped his horny palms together, and sprang forward at the clothing. Suit after suit turned shapeless under his pressing, squeezing, slapping hands. Nothing. …He squatted and tackled the shoes.

When he rose, there was something pained about his expression; and he glanced at Ellery once with the faintest perturbation. That gentleman continued to polish his glasses, but his eyes were noticeably sharper and he edged the slightest bit closer to Grant.

Sergeant Velie groped about the shelf. His hand encountered a large round white box. He pulled it down and ripped off the lid. A wide-brimmed, dun-colored Stetson, apparently brand-new, lay majestically revealed. He picked up the Stetson. … and started.

Then he came slowly out of the closet, carrying the box, and laid it on the table before the Inspector. He glanced briefly and queerly at Ellery.

Lying peacefully in the box, on the bottom beneath where the Stetson had rested, there was a flat, dull, tiny weapon—a .25 calibre automatic pistol.

Grant’s body quivered, and the color drained from his rocky face, leaving it the hue and consistency of earth-stained marble. Kit uttered a choking little cry, and then pressed her hand quickly to her mouth, her eyes fixed with horror on the old Westerner. Curly sat turned to stone, unbelieving, stupefied.

The Inspector stared at the weapon for a split-second, then snatched it out of the box, dropped it into his pocket, and with remarkable swiftness reached into his hip-pocket and brought out a .38 Colt police revolver. This he permitted to droop negligently from his fingers.

“Well,” he said calmly. “What have you got to say for yourself, Grant?”

Grant stared unseeing at the revolver. “What—My God, man, I—” He braced himself and drew a deep unsteady breath. His eyes were the eyes of a dead man.

“Didn’t you tell me,” said the Inspector softly, “that you don’t own a .25 automatic, Grant?”

“I don’t,” said Grant in a slow, confused way.

“Oh, you deny that this little feller,” the Inspector tapped his pocket, “is yours?”

“Ain’t mine,” said Grant lifelessly. “I never saw it before.”

Curly got uncertainly to his feet, eyes fixed on his father; and he swayed a little from side to side. Sergeant Velie quietly pushed him back into his chair, and stood over him.

Before any of them realized what was happening, Kit uttered a strangled cry, as appalling as the snarl of a tigress, and sprang from her chair directly at Grant. Her fingers clawed for his throat. He did not move, made no effort to defend himself. Ellery leaped between them and cried: “Miss Horne! For heaven’s sake, none of that!”

She retreated, drawn up stiffly, a look of unspeakable loathing on her brown face.

And she said: “I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do, you two-faced Judas,” very quietly.

Grant quivered again.

“Thomas,” said the Inspector with a little crackle in his tone, “I’ll take care of these people. Take that bean-shooter out of my pocket and beat it down to h.q. Get Knowles. Have him test it. We’re waiting here. …None of you,” he said sharply, as Sergeant Velie obeyed, “make one funny move. Grant, sit down. Miss Horne, you too. And you, young feller, stay where you are.” The muzzle of the police revolver described a tiny arc.