Dutch Shoe Mystery (10 page)

“Fairly well acquainted.”

“It’s quite a problem.” Ellery gnawed at a fingernail. Minchen stared at him, as if he could not understand the exact nature of this “problem.”

Inspector Queen interposed impatiently, “Oh, after all, son. … She can’t very well remain here, in the Hospital. If she’s feeling so badly—poor child!—her place is at home. Let her go, now, and let’s get on.”

“Very well.” The frown did not leave Ellery’s forehead. He patted Minchen’s shoulder absently. “Have Miss Dunning accompany Miss Doorn and Mr. Doorn. But before they go—Yes, that’s best. Johnson, get Mr. Doorn and Miss Dunning in here for a moment. I shan’t keep them long. I suppose, John, there’s a nurse with Miss Doorn?”

“Certainly. And young Morehouse is with her, too.”

“And Sarah Fuller?” demanded Ellery.

“Yes.”

“Johnson. While you’re about it take Miss Fuller up to the gallery of the Amphitheater and see that she’s kept there until we call for her.”

The drab-looking detective quickly left the room.

A white-coated young interne slipped past the man at the corridor-door and, looking around timidly, approached Dr. Janney.

“Here!” roared the Inspector. “Where do you think you’re going, young man?”

Velie sauntered slowly to the side of the interne, who wilted perceptibly. The surgeon rose.

“Oh, it’s all right,” he droned in a tired voice. “What do you want, Pearson?”

The young man gulped. “Dr. Hawthorne’s just called, Doctor, about that angina consultation. He said to get a move on. …”

Janney clapped his hand to his forehead. “Rats!” he exclaimed. “Forgot all about it! Slipped my mind completely.—Look here, Queen, you’ll have to let me go. Serious matter.” Rare case. Ludwig’s angina. Terrific mortality rate. …”

Inspector Queen looked at Ellery, who waved his hand negligently. “We’re certainly not privileged to retard the miraculous processes of healing, Doctor. If you must, you must.
Au revoir!”

Dr. Janney was already at the door, pushing the young interne before him. He paused, hand at the knob, and looked back with a brown-toothed and strangely-refreshed grin. “Took a death to get me in here, and a near-death to get me out. … ’Bye!”

“Not so fast, Dr. Janney.” The Inspector stood quite still. “You are not to leave town under any circumstances!”

“Good God!” groaned the surgeon, popping back into the room. “That’s impossible. I’ve got a medical convention in Chicago this week and I planned to skip out tomorrow. Why, Abby herself wouldn’t have wanted—”

“I said,” repeated the old man distinctly, “that you are not to leave the City. And I meant it. Convention or no convention. Otherwise—”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” screamed the surgeon, and he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Velie crossed the Anteroom in three strides, pulling the burly figure of Detective Ritter with him. “After him, you!” he growled. “And don’t let him out of your sight, or I’ll fan your tail!”

Ritter grinned and lumbered into the corridor, disappearing in Janney’s wake.

Ellery was saying with amusement, “Our surgical friend’s fondness for calling upon his Creator doesn’t jibe at all with his professional agnosticism, d’ye know? …” when Johnson opened the door from the Amphitheater and stepped aside to allow Edith Dunning and a short man of tremendous girth to precede him.

Inspector Queen hopped forward. “Miss Dunning? Mr. Doorn? Come in, come in! We shan’t keep you a moment!”

Edith Dunning, her fair hair disheveled, her eyes red-rimmed and cold, stopped short on the threshold. “Make it snappy.” She spoke in a remarkably metallic voice. “Hulda’s in bad shape and we’ve got to get her home.”

Hendrik Doorn shuffled two paces into the room. The Inspector eyed him amiably, and not without astonishment. Doorn’s abdomen bulged in fold after fold of fat flesh; he seemed to ooze forward rather than walk; his gelatinous belly quivered with each step in a gross rhythm. His face shone moon-like and greasy; it was mottled with tiny pink spots, condensed into a broad reddish bulb at the tip of his nose. He was completely bald, with an unhealthy white skull which reflected the light of the room.

“Yess,” he said, and his voice was no less remarkable than his appearance. It was pitched high, yet it had a curiously grating, rusty quality. “Yess,” he squeaked, “Hulda needts her bedt. What iss this foolish bother? We know nothings.”

“A moment, just a moment,” said the Inspector soothingly. “Please come in. We must have that door closed. Sit down, sit down!”

Edith Dunning’s narrow eyes never left the Inspector’s face. Stiffly, like a machine, she sat down in a chair which Johnson held out for her and folded her hands angularly in her lap. Hendrik Doorn waddled to another chair and sank, groaning, into it. His gross buttocks hung limply over the sides.

The Inspector took a generous pinch of snuff and promptly sneezed. “Now, sir,” he began politely, “one question and you’ll be on your way. … Have you any idea who might have had cause to murder your sister?”

The fat man mopped his cheeks with a silk handkerchief. His little black eyes shifted from the Inspector’s face to the floor and back again. “I—
Gott!
This iss a terrible business for uss all. Who knows? Abigail wass a funny womans—a wery funny womans. …”

“Look here.” Inspector Queen was sharp. “You must know something about her private life—enemies, whatnot. Can’t you suggest a possible line of inquiry—?”

Doorn kept wiping his face with short heavy swoops of his arm. His porcine little eyes roved, were never still. He seemed inwardly to be debating something with himself. “Well—” he said at last, weakly, “there iss somethings. … Budt nodt here!” He heaved himself out of the chair. “Nodt here!”

“Ah, then you do know something,” said the Inspector softly. “Very interesting, I’m sure. Out with it now, Mr. Doorn—out with it, or we shan’t let you go!”

The girl sitting beside the fat man stirred impatiently. “Oh, for the love of Pete, mister, let’s get out of here. …”

The door-knob rattled violently and the door was kicked open. They all turned to see Morehouse stagger in, supporting a tall young woman whose eyes were closed and whose head was bent forward, rolling a little. A nurse held tightly to her on the other side.

The young lawyer’s face was crimson with anger. His eyes spat fire as the Inspector and Ellery sprang forward to help carry the girl into the Anteroom.

“Dear, dear!” muttered the Inspector in an agitated voice. “So this is Miss Doorn”, eh? We were just—”

“Yes, you were just—Junk!” roared Morehouse. “And it’s about time. What is this—the Spanish Inquisition? I demand permission to take Miss Doorn home! … Outrage! Criminal! Oh, get out of the way, will you!”

He shoved Ellery roughly to one side as they half-lifted the unconscious girl into a chair. Morehouse stood stiff-legged over her, fanning her face with his hand, spluttering incoherently. The nurse pushed him impersonally away and applied a vial to the girl’s nostrils. Edith Dunning had risen; she was bent over Hulda, slapping the girl’s cheeks.

“Hulda!” she called irritably. “Hulda! Don’t be a little fool. Come out of it!”

The girl’s eyes fluttered open; she shrank back from the vial. She looked blankly at Edith Dunning; then she turned her head slightly and saw Morehouse.

“Oh, Phil! She’s—she’s …” She got no further. Her voice blurred with sobs; she stretched her arms blindly toward Morehouse and began to cry. The nurse, Edith Dunning, Ellery stepped back; Morehouse’s face had magically softened; he leaned over Hulda, talking rapidly to her in a whisper.

The Inspector blew his nose. Hendrik Doorn, who still stood before his chair and had merely glanced at the girl while she was being attended, quivered all over his immense body.

“Let uss be going,” he squeaked. “The girl—”

Ellery confronted him swiftly. “Mr. Doorn, what were you going to say? You know some one with a grudge? A desire for vengeance?”

Doorn quavered, “I had rather nodt say. I am in danger of my life. I. …”

“Oho!” murmured the Inspector, stepping to Ellery’s side. “A hush story, hey? Somebody’s threatening, Doorn?”

Doorn’s lip trembled. “I will nodt speak in this place. This afternoon—maybe. At my house, now—no.”

Ellery and Inspector Queen exchanged glances, and Ellery retreated. The Inspector smiled agreeably at Doorn and said: “Very well. This afternoon at your house. … And you’d better be there, old boy. Thomas!” The giant grunted. “You’d do well to send some one along with Mr. Doorn, Miss Doorn and Miss Dunning—just to take care of them.”

“I’m going along,” cried Morehouse suddenly, spinning around. “And I don’t need any of your damned snooping detectives, either. … Miss Dunning, grab hold of Hulda!”

“Oh, but you’re not, Mr. Morehouse,” said the Inspector in his mildest voice. “You’re going to stay a while. We need you.” Morehouse glared; their glances clashed. Then the lawyer looked around at the ring of grim faces. He shrugged, helped the weeping girl to her feet, walked with her to the corridor door. Her hand clung to his until Hendrik Doorn and Edith Dunning, followed by a detective, reached the door. There was a furtive handclasp, the girl squared her shoulders, and Morehouse was left alone at the door to watch the little company go slowly down the hall.

There was silence as he closed the door and turned back to face them.

“Well,” he said bitterly, “here I am. Now what do you want with me? Please don’t keep me—too long.”

They took chairs as several of the remaining district and local detectives, on a sign from the Inspector, marched out of the Anteroom. Velie put his gargantuan back against the corridor door and folded his arms. …

“Mr. Morehouse.” The Inspector settled himself comfortably and clasped his tiny hands in his lap. Ellery lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He became absorbed in the glowing tip.

“Mr. Morehouse. You’ve been Mrs. Doorn’s attorney for a long time?”

“A number of years,” sighed Morehouse. “My father handled her affairs before me. Sort of family client, the old lady was.”

“You know her private as well as her legal affairs?”

“Intimately.”

“What was the relationship between Mrs. Doorn and her brother Hendrik? Did they get along? Tell me everything you know about the man.”

Morehouse made a
moué
of distaste. “You’d be getting an earful, Inspector. … Of course, you must realize that some of the things I’m going to say are purely opinions—as a friend of the family I’ve naturally observed and heard things. …”

“Go on.”

“Hendrik? An eighteen-carat parasite. He’s never done a lick of work in his life. Perhaps that’s why he’s so abominably fat. … He’s not only a blood-sucking leech, but an expensive one to maintain. I know, because I’ve seen some bills. And the little playmate has all sorts of pleasant vices. Gambling, women—the usual thing.”

“Women?” Ellery closed his eyes and smiled dreamily. “I can’t quite believe it.”

“You don’t know some women,” replied Morehouse grimly. “He’s been Broadway’s roly-poly sugar-daddy to so many women he probably doesn’t remember them all himself. It hasn’t reached the papers much—Abigail saw to that. … You’d think he might live fairly comfortably with the allowance of twenty-five thousand a year Abigail provided for him. But not Hendrik! He’s perpetually broke.”

“Hasn’t he any money in his own right?” asked the Inspector.

“Not a red cent. You see, Abigail has made every penny of her enormous fortune by her own wits. The family originally was poorer than the public knows. But she had a genius for finance. … Interesting woman, Abby. It’s a damned shame.”

“Legal trouble? Shady deals? Anything underhanded?” demanded the old man. “Seems likely he’d have to pay hush money to some of those Jezebels of his.”

Morehouse hesitated. “Well … I can’t say.”

The Inspector smiled. “Hmm. … And the relationship between Hendrik and Mrs. Doorn?”

“Lukewarm. Abby wasn’t anybody’s fool. She knew what was going on. She put up with it because she had a fierce pride of family and wouldn’t allow the world to talk about any one with the name of Doorn. Occasionally she put her foot down, and there would be a row. …”

“How about Mrs. Doorn and Hulda?”

“Oh, the most affectionate relationship!” said Morehouse at once. “Hulda was Abigail’s pride and joy. There wasn’t anything in Abby’s possession that Hulda couldn’t have by a mere word. But Hulda has always been pretty conservative in her tastes—certainly she doesn’t live up to her position as one of the world’s richest heiresses. Quiet, modest—but you saw her. She’s a—”

“Oh, beyond a doubt!” said the Inspector hastily. “And does Hulda Doorn realize her uncle’s reputation?”

“I imagine so. But it hurts her terribly, I suppose, and she’s never spoken of it, even to—” he paused—“even to me.”

“Tell me,” asked Ellery, “how old is the young lady?”

“Hulda? Oh, nineteen or twenty.”

Ellery twisted his neck toward Dr. Minchen, who had been sitting quietly in a far corner of the room, observing everything and saying nothing. “John!”

The physician started. “My turn now?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Hardly. I was just going to comment that we seem to have struck one of those not infrequent gynecological phenomena you pill-peddlers are always talking about. Didn’t you tell me this morning in one of our pre-garrotte chats that Abigail was over seventy?”

“Why, yes. But what do you mean? Gynecology refers to the diseases of women, and the old lady wasn’t—”

Ellery flicked a finger nonchalantly. “Well, surely,” he murmured, “pregnancy past a certain age might have a pathological root? … Mrs. Doorn must have been,” he said, “a most remarkable woman in more ways than one. … By the way, what about the late Mr. Doorn? I mean—Abigail Doorn’s spouse? When did he shuffle off the mortal coil? I don’t keep in touch with the society editors, you know.”

“About fifteen years ago,” put in Morehouse. He continued heatedly, “Now see here, Queen, what did you mean by your nasty insinuation that—?”

“My dear Morehouse,” smiled Ellery, “it
is
a bit odd, isn’t it, that astonishing difference in age between mother and daughter? You can scarcely blame me for politely raising my eyebrows.”