Queen’s Bureau of Investigation (15 page)

The young men glared, as if daring each other to make a break for it.

“It's all right, gentlemen,” said Ellery, “there's a very large detective-sergeant named Tom Velie waiting in the next room who could break the back of either of you without dropping the ash from his cigaret. How do I know, did you ask, Father Bowen?”

“Why, yes, Mr. Queen,” said the clergyman, bewildered. “You haven't asked these young men a single question.”

“Would you mind reaching to that shelf, Father,” said Ellery with another smile, “and handing me that great, fat, ominous-looking book in the plain paper wrapper?… Thank you.… This volume, gentlemen, is forbiddingly entitled
Forensic Medicine and Legal Biology
, and it was written by two of the foremost authorities in the field, Mendelius and Claggett. Let's see, it should be around page five hundred and something.… Why, Father, you told me that Miss Wichingame's twin sister was identical with her in every physical respect. Since Miss Wichingame is blue-eyed, then Mrs. Gaard must have been blue-eyed, too. And you described the Reverend Gaard in Miss Wichingame's words as ‘a pure Nordic,' which ethnologically puts John Gaard's father among the blue-eyed, too.… Ah, here it is. Now let me read you the second paragraph on page five sixty-three of this authoritative work.

“
Two blue-eyed persons
,” Ellery said, his eyes on the open page of the big book, “
would produce only children with blue eyes. They would not produce children with brown eyes.
”

“There he goes!” cried Father Bowen.

“Velie!” roared Ellery. “Catch him!”

And Sergeant Velie, appearing magically, did so in his usual emphatic manner.

While the Sergeant was leading the tall, broad, brown-eyed impostor away, and the short, blue-eyed, authenticated John Gaard was trying to express his thanks to Ellery in an excited mixture of English, Chinese, and Korean, Father Bowen picked up the fat book from Ellery's bed, which Ellery had closed, and he turned to page 563. A look of perplexity wrinkled his leathery face, and he removed the paper jacket and glanced at the cover.

“But Mr. Queen,” exclaimed Father Bowen, “this book isn't entitled
Forensic Medicine and Legal Biology
. It's an old edition of Who's
Who!
”

“Is it?” said Ellery guiltily. “I could have sworn—”

“Don't,” said Father Bowen in a severe tone. “The fact is Mendelius and Claggett don't exist. You just made that whole quotation about blue eyes-brown eyes up! Isn't it true?”

“There was a time when the books said it was,” said Ellery mournfully, “but they probably don't any more—too many blue-eyed parents of irreproachable probity were turning up with brown-eyed children. However, our brown-eyed claimant didn't know that, Father, did he? And now,” Ellery said to blue-eyed young John, who was gaping idiotically, “I'll name my fee: Turn me over in this damned—beg pardon, Father—bed!”

RACKET DEPT.

The Gamblers' Club

The life of The Gamblers' Club was a merry one. It was correspondingly short, and when overnight the Club ceased to exist speculation ran up and down the gamut searching for an explanation. But the ex-membership had taken a terrible oath, more binding than if it had been sworn in blood, and no traitor to the conspiracy of silence could be found. For these were businessmen, and they could hardly confess that in the clutch their roster—most of whom were self-made millionaires only lately retired from their exertions—had failed in simple arithmetic.

Ellery was admitted into the sacred mysteries of The Gamblers' Club one winter morning, when a stainless town car which the slush of 87th Street seemed unable to sully deposited three men on his doorstep. Inspector Queen, who was home that morning working on a confidential report to the Commissioner, raised his birdy brows at the size of the car and retired with his papers to the study—not, however, without leaving the door ajar the irreducible minimum for eavesdropping.

The three men introduced themselves as Charles Van Wyne, Cornelius Lewis, and Gorman Fitch. Van Wyne was slender and bluish, Lewis was huge and brown, and Fitch was roly-poly and pink. Where Van Wyne had a crumbly look, like a rare cheese prominently displayed in a Park Avenue gourmet's shop, Lewis was a rich brute roast served on a Wall Street table; and as for Fitch, with his puffy pink-ness he looked uncannily like Ellery's recollection of the boyhood confection known as Foxy Grandpa—Fitch had made his money, he announced immediately, in brassières.

The Gamblers' Club, they explained to Ellery, was an association of seventeen retired men with a passion for gambling and the means to indulge it. In addition to the conventional group games of chance played in the club-rooms, members were pledged to suggest unusual gambling adventures to one another on an individual basis, being expected in this oath-bound obligation to display imagination and ingenuity. Suggestions were made by mail, anonymously, on special letterheads of The Gamblers' Club available to members only.

“Why anonymously?” asked Ellery, fascinated.

“Well, when someone's been hurt,” squeaked pink little Mr. Fitch, “we don't want him holding a grudge against the suggesting member.”

“Of course, we're all reliable characters,” murmured Van Wyne, nibbling the head of his stick. “Wouldn't be possible otherwise, you know. Quite the point of the Club.”

“Apparently someone's developed an unreliable streak,” observed Ellery, “or you gentlemen wouldn't be here.”

The trio exchanged glances.

“You tell it, Van Wyne,” boomed the large Mr. Lewis.

“Lewis dropped in on me this morning,” said Van Wyne abruptly, “to ask if I happened to be party to a certain individual Club gamble he'd been enjoying, and when we compared notes we found we were both in the same thing. The two of us wondered if anyone else was in it, and since Mr. Fitch lives in my neighborhood we dropped in on him and, sure enough, he was involved, too.

“Exactly three weeks ago each of us received a long envelope in the morning mail, with a typewritten message on Club stationery—quite in order—giving us a tip on the market. The stock suggested is unstable as the deuce, way up one day and way down the next, making it a real gamble, so each of us bought. It took a big jump, and we cleaned up.

“Two weeks ago this morning we each received a second letter proposing the purchase of another stock, equally jittery. Two days later this stock zoomed, and again we made a lot of money.

“And just one week ago today—”

“The same thing,” rumbled Cornelius Lewis impatiently.

“You want to know,” asked Ellery, “how he does it?”

“Oh, we know how he does it,” said pudgy Mr. Fitch testily. “He's got inside information, of course. It's not that—”

“Then it's the letter you all received this morning.”

The big ex-banker glowered. “How the devil did you know we got letters from him today, too?”

“Let's call him Mr. X,” said Ellery, getting into the spirit of the thing. “Mr. X's first letter came three weeks ago today, his second two weeks ago today, his third one week ago today—so it was a pretty good bet, Mr. Lewis, that a fourth came today. What's disturbing you about it, gentlemen?”

Charles Van Wyne produced a long envelope.

“Read it, Mr. Queen, and settle an argument.”

The envelope was of fine quality. It had no imprint or return address. Van Wyne's name and address were typewritten, and from the postmark it had been mailed the previous night.

Ellery removed from it a sheet of weighty stationery with a tony
The Gamblers' Club
at the top in gold engraving:

Dear Fellow Member:

How did you like my three market tips? Now something new has come up and it looks like the best yet. Secrecy is important, though, and I have to handle it personally or it's all off. If you'll gamble
$25,000
on a hot chance to double it in seven days, no questions asked, wrap the cash in a waterproof package and leave it at the foot of Dominicus Pike's grave in Trinity churchyard tomorrow at
3.30
a.m. on the button. No prying, or you'll spoil the deal
.

There was no signature.

“Now I've told Lewis,” said Van Wyne, “that this is a sporting gamble. The man's proved himself. I'm for it.”

“I don't say I'm not,” growled Cornelius Lewis. “The only thing is—”

“Isn't that why we're here?” demanded Gorman Fitch with a sniff. “What do you think, Queen? This sound on the level to you?”

“Fitch, you're impugning the integrity of a fellow member,” said Van Wyne coldly.

“I'm just asking a question!”

“It's possible, Van Wyne, isn't it?” grumbled Lewis. “And if somebody's turned crooked, that's the end of the Club and you know it. What's your opinion, Queen?”

“Sounds awfully good to me,” murmured Ellery. “But I'd want to dig a bit before committing myself. Did either of you other gentlemen bring your letters of this morning with you?”

“Left mine home,” stated Lewis.

“They're practically identical with Van Wyne's,” objected Fitch.

“I'd like to see them, nevertheless, envelope and all. Suppose you send them right over to me by messenger. I'll phone the three of you before noon.”

The moment the front door had closed, the study door opened; and there was Inspector Queen, incredulous.

“Did I hear right?” snapped Ellery's father. “Did you say to those three this sounds ‘awfully good' to you? Good for what, laughs?”

“The trouble with you,” said Ellery in a pained way, “is that you've got no gambling blood. Why not wait for developments?”

Emerging from the study again just before noon, Inspector Queen found his celebrated son examining two envelopes and their contents. Cornelius Lewis's envelope, postmarked the night before, was exactly like the one Charles Van Wyne had received, and the wording on the Club letterhead was the same except that where Van Wyne's time for depositing the $25,000 at the Trinity Church grave had been 3:30
A.M.,
Lewis's was to be 3:45
A.M.
The small plain envelope Gorman Fitch had received, also postmarked the previous night, contained the same message on Club stationery except that Fitch was to deposit his package of cash at 4:00
A.M.

“I suppose,” said the Inspector, “you're going to recommend that your three potsy-playing clients follow these awfully good instructions to the letter?”

“Sure thing,” said Ellery cheerfully; and to the Inspector's stupefaction Ellery telephoned to Van Wyne, Lewis, and Fitch in turn, informing each that in his professional opinion the gamble was as safe as Fort Knox and he only wished he had the entree—and the $25,000—to gamble with them.

“Are you out of your mind, Ellery?” howled Inspector Queen as Ellery hung up for the third time. “The only sure thing in this racket is that three suckers are going to be taken for twenty-five thousand lollypops apiece!”

“Racket?” murmured the son.

The old gentleman controlled himself. “Look. This smoothie operates on a group of fish—”

“Mr. X? And what do you mean by ‘group'? Specify.”

“Seventeen! One of the seventeen Club members has gone sour. Maybe he's broke. He works out a con scheme, the basis of which is market tips to the other sixteen members. He picks a stock that's always acting like a pogo stick and he writes half the members to play this stock to go up, the other half to play it to go down. Whichever way the stock moves, up or down, half the members lose,
but the other half win
, and with the winners he's a genius.

“Step two: He ignores the losers in the first operation and sends his second tip, on another ultra-lively stock, only to the winners—”

“Figures,” pleaded Ellery. “Exactly how many would receive the second tip?”

“Half the original sixteen! Eight, the eight first winners. Now he tips half these eight to play the stock up, the other half to play it down. Again, half have to win—”

“Number, please,” said Ellery.

“Can't you do kindergarten arithmetic? Half of eight is four! Now he's got four two-time winners. He picks another kangaroo stock, sends the third letter, this time telling half the four to play the stock up, the other half to play it down.

“So now he's got his three-times-winning chumps primed, full of confidence in his market know-how, and he's ready to spring the big one. He sends his fourth letter to the two suckers—”

“To the how many suckers?” inquired Ellery.

“To the two remaining winners!”

“Starting with sixteen fish, that's what it should boil down to, all right,” mourned Ellery. “The only thing is, it doesn't.
We've got three.
”

Slowly, the Inspector sat down.

“An extra man,” said Ellery. “Question: Who is he, and how could he possibly defy the laws of mathematics? Answer: He can't, so he's the con man himself, our friend Mr. X, not one of the fish at all.”

“Van Wyne, Lewis, or Fitch. One of them's the bunco …”

“I'm afraid so. Whichever one of the three he is, this morning, to his annoyance, he found himself in a consultation with his two victims. The letters setting up the graveyard payoff had been mailed last night and were already delivered, so he couldn't do anything about
them
. He could only pretend he'd been a three-times winner, too! If I recognized the gimmick when they came to consult me, and if I warned his innocents to lay off, Mr. X would simply fail to show up tonight at Trinity. But if I didn't seem suspicious, or a threat to him, he'd go through with his scheme. Does it figure?”

“Like Einstein,” chortled the Inspector; and he hurried downtown to police headquarters to make certain arrangements about a churchyard and the grave of one Dominicus Pike.