Queen’s Bureau of Investigation (5 page)

“One week from today you three be at my house between two and three in the afternoon. With your stock.”

Ellery found his father standing outside the David Brothers mansion on the East River. It had been raining since morning and Ellery had to splash through puddles on the driveway before he could join the Inspector under the porte-cochere.

“Was this trip necessary?” grumbled Ellery, shaking the rain from his hat. “And if so, why couldn't the taxi deposit me decently under the roof?” The protected part of the driveway was roped off.

“Tire tracks,” said Inspector Queen. “I thought you'd want to sit in on this, Ellery. It's murder, it's nasty, and … I don't know.”

Ellery perked up and looked at the tire marks. “Who, how, when, why, and so forth?”

“Mrs. Daisy Brothers, ex-club stripper. Stabbed to death between two and three this
P.M.
by one of her three brothers-in-law. I've got the whole story from her lawyer.” And the Inspector told Ellery of the Four Brothers Mining Company board meeting of the previous week and Big Dave's widow's stock coup. “So I guess they found she was right when she told them they'd be wasting their time and money trying to beat her in court—and as a result she's lying in there in her library, still with the three certified checks, the deadest dame you ever saw. She was alone in the house—she'd given up all her servants when her husband died and she's been living here ever since like a hermit, doing her own work.”

“What about these tire marks?”

“Three cars rolled up here one at a time,” said Inspector Queen with a sigh. “The marks identify the cars as a Cadillac, a Rolls-Royce, and a Chevrolet—and from the overlapping of the treads, they came in that order. The Caddy is a '51 town car belonging to the finance company—I mean Charlton Brothers; the Rolls is a secondhand job Everett Brothers picked up cheap in London last year; the Chewy is what Archibald Brothers runs around in when he's calling on his girl friends or otherwise doesn't want to be noticed by some vulgar columnist.

“I've sweated the three gents and they've admitted coming here between two and three today, separately and alone, about fifteen-twenty minutes apart.”

“And their stories are?” murmured Ellery.

“Identical. It's collusion, of course; they were all ready for me. They probably drew lots, and the brother who got tagged for the party is being covered up by the other two. Each one says she was already dead when he got here, and that he got scared and ran.”

“They'd have to say that,” said Ellery reflectively, “otherwise how would they account for their stocks' not having been turned over to her? Let's have a look at the lady.”

Big Dave's widow was a mess. Whichever brother had stabbed her with the hunting-knife letter opener from Big Dave's desk, he had wielded it with passion and without finesse, many times.

“But,” as the Inspector remarked, “he wasn't out for a medal in technique. The things people do for money!”

“What's this?” Ellery had picked up a man's raincoat with the eraser end of a pencil. The raincoat was slightly damp, the lower part of the right sleeve was rain-soaked, and the front of the coat was smeared untidily and redly. It was of medium size, not new.

“We found it rolled up under that leather chair,” said the Inspector. “She fought for her life and he got her blood all over his coat. Rather than risk being caught or even seen with the coat in this condition, he left it here.”

“A bad mistake,” said Ellery.

“You think so? You won't find any identifying marks, the pockets were cleaned out even of lint and dust, all three brothers owned raincoats like this at one time or other, and they all wear a medium size. Each one denies it's his coat, and each one says he can't produce his own coat because he discarded it long ago. So we don't get at him through elimination.”

“There are other ways,” remarked Ellery.

“Yes,” said his father with a shrug, “we'll do a sweat, hair, and dust analysis, but they're not always conclusive. I have a hunch, son, we won't get any more out of the coat than we did out of the knife, which doesn't show a print.”

“I disagree.”

“You see something I missed?” exclaimed Inspector Queen. “In the coat?”

“Yes, Dad. Something that indicates exactly which brother killed Big Dave's widow. And with nothing up my sleeve,” said Ellery with a grin, “although with something definitely up
his
.

“Look at this coat. It's slightly damp from the rain, but the lower part of the right sleeve is rain-
soaked
. How did that part of the sleeve get soaked while the rest of the sleeve—in fact, the rest of the coat—merely got a little damp?

“The brothers came here separately, at different times, each alone in his car. It's rained all day. So the wearer of this coat drove a car in the rain. In driving a car in the rain, especially in city traffic, what do you habitually do which will get one of your coat sleeves wet?”

“Give arm signals for stops and turns …!” But then Inspector Queen looked puzzled. “But the driver always signals with his left arm, Ellery, and it's the right sleeve of this coat that's rain-soaked.”

“Conclusion: This driver signalled with his right arm.”

“But to be able to do that—” the Inspector stopped. Then he said, slowly, “
His car has a righthand drive.
”

“Charlton's Cadillac and Archibald's Chevrolet—American cars—lefthand drives,” said Ellery, nodding. “But the other car is a Rolls-Royce—British; and what's more, a Rolls bought secondhand in London, so it has to have a righthand drive. Indicating the owner of the Rolls—Everett Brothers.

“By the way, Dad, what's he look like?”

PARK PATROL DEPT.

A Lump of Sugar

If not for the fact that Mounted Patrolman Wilkins was doing the dawn trick on the bridle path, where it goes by the Park Tavern, the Shakes Cooney murder would never have been solved. Ellery admits this cheerfully. He can afford to, since it was he who brought to that merry-go-round some much-needed horse sense.

A waiter with a hot date had neglected to strip one of his tables on the Tavern's open terrace at closing time the night before, whereupon the question was: Who had done a carving job on Cooney's so-called heart about 6
A.M.
the next morning? Logic said nearly eight million people, or roughly the population of New York City, the law-abiding majority of whom might well have found Shakes Cooney's continued existence a bore. But Mounted Patrolman Wilkins was there when it counted, and it was he who collared the three gentlemen who, curiously, were in the neighborhood of the deserted Tavern and Cooney's corpse at that ungentlemanly hour.

Their collars were attached to very important necks, and when Inspector Richard Queen of police headquarters took over he handled them, as it were, with lamb's-wool knuckles. It was not every morning that Inspector Queen was called upon in a homicide to quiz a statesman, a financial titan, and an organization politician; and the little Inspector rose to the occasion.

Senator Kregg responded loftily, as to a reporter from an opposition newspaper.

Piers d'I. Millard responded remotely, as to a minority stockholder.

The Hon. Stevens responded affably, as to a precinct worker.

Lofty, remote, or affable, the three distinguished suspects in riding clothes agreed in their stories to the tittle of an iota. They had been out for an early canter on the bridle path. They had not addressed or seen any fourth person until the mounted policeman gathered them in. The life and death of Shakes Cooney were as nothing to them. Patrolman Wilkins's act in detaining them had been “totalitarian”—Senator Kregg; “ill-advised”—Financier Millard; “a sucker play”—Politician Stevens.

Delicately, Inspector Queen broached certain possibly relevant matters,
viz.:
In the national forest of politics, it was rumored, Senator Kregg (ex-Senator Kregg) was being measured as a great and spreading oak, of such timber as presidents are made. Financier Piers d'I. Millard was said to be the Senator's architect, already working on the blueprints with his golden stylus. And small-souled political keyholers would have it that the Hon. Stevens was down on the plans as sales manager of the development. Under the circumstances, said the Inspector with a cough, some irreverent persons might opine that Shakes Cooney—bookie, tout, gambler, underworld slug, and clubhouse creep, with the instincts of a jay and the ethics of a grave robber—had learned of the burial place of some body or other, the exhumation of which would so befoul the Senator's vicinity as to wither his noble aspirations on the branch. It might even be surmised, suggested Inspector Queen apologetically, that Cooney's price for letting the body stay buried was so outrageous as to cause Someone to lose his head. Would the gentlemen care to comment?

The Senator obliged in extended remarks, fortunately off the record, then he surged away. Prepared to totter after, Financier Millard paused long enough to ask reflectively, “And how long, did you say, Inspector Queen, you have been with the New York police department?”—and it sounded like the
coup de grâce
to an empire. The Hon. Stevens lingered to ooze a few lubricating drops and then he, too, was gone.

When Ellery arrived on the scene he found his father in a good, if thoughtful, temper. The hide, remarked Inspector Queen, was pretty much cut-and-dried; the question was, To whose door had Shakes been trying to nail it? Because Shakes Cooney hadn't been a man to take murder lying down. The evidence on the Tavern terrace showed that after his assailant fled Cooney had struggled to his hands and knees, the Tavern steak knife stuck in his butchered chest, and that he had gorily crawled—kept alive by sheer meanness, protested the Inspector—to the table which the preoccupied waiter had forgotten to clear off the night before; that the dying man had then reached to the table top and groped for a certain bowl; and that from this bowl he had plucked the object which they had found in his fist, a single lump of sugar. Then, presumably with satisfaction, Shakes had expired.

“He must have been one of your readers,” complained the Inspector. “Because, Ellery, that's a dying message or I'm the Senator's uncle. But which one was Shakes fingering?”

“Sugar,” said Ellery absently. “In Cooney's dictionary sugar means—”

“Sure. But Millard isn't the only one of the three who's loaded with heavy sugar. The ex-Senator's well stocked, and he recently doubled his inventory by marrying that fertilizer millionaire's daughter. And Stevens has the first grand he ever grafted. So Shakes didn't mean that kind of sugar. What's sugar mean in
your
dictionary, son?”

Ellery, who had left page 87 of his latest novel in his typewriter, picked the lint off his thoughts. Finally he said, “Get me the equestrian history of Kregg, Millard, and Stevens,” and he went back home to literature.

That afternoon his father phoned from Center Street.

“What?” said Ellery, frowning over at his typewriter.

“About their horseback riding,” snapped the Inspector. “The Senator used to ride, but he had a bad fall ten years ago and now he only punishes a saddle in the gym—the electrical kind. Moneybags hasn't been on the back of a plug since he walked out on Grandpa Millard's plowhorse in '88, in Indiana. Only reason Piers d'I. allowed himself to be jockeyed into those plush-lined jodhpurs this morning, I'm pretty sure, is so he, Kregg, and Stevens could have a nice dirty skull session in the Park out of range of the newsreel cameras.”

“And Stevens?”

“That bar insect?” snorted the old gentleman. “Only horse
he
knows how to ride is a dark one, with galluses. This morning's the first time Stevens ever set his suède-topped brogans into a stirrup.”

“Well, well,” said Ellery, sounding surprised. “Then what did Shakes mean? Sugar … Is one of them tied up with the sugar industry in some way? Has Kregg ever been conspicuous in sugar legislation? Is Millard a director of some sugar combine? Or maybe Stevens owns some sugar stock. Try that line, Dad.”

His father said wearily, “I don't need you for that kind of fishing, my son. That's in the works.”

“Then you're in,” said Ellery; and without enjoyment he went back to his novel which, like Shakes Cooney, was advancing on its hands and knees.

Two days later Inspector Queen telephoned his report. “Not one of them is tied up with sugar in any way whatsoever. Only connection Kregg, Millard, and Stevens have with the stuff is what I take it they drop into their coffee.” After a moment the Inspector said, “Are you there?”

“Lump of sugar,” Ellery mumbled. “And Shakes evidently thought it would be clear …” The mumble ended in a glug.

“Yes?” said his father, brightening.

“Of course,” chuckled Ellery. “Dad, get a medical report on those three. Then let me know which one of 'em has diabetes.”

The Inspector's uppers clacked against his lowers. “That's my baby! That's it, son! It's as good as wrapped up!”

The following day Inspector Queen phoned again.

“Whose father?” asked Ellery, running his fingers through his hair. “Oh! Yes, Dad? What is it?”

“About the case, Ellery—”

“Case? Oh, the case. Yes? Well? Which one's diabetic?”

The Inspector said thoughtfully, “None.”

“None! You mean—?”

“I mean.”

“Hmm,” said Ellery, “Hnh!”

For some time Inspector Queen heard nothing but little rumbles, pops, flutters, and other ruminative noises, until suddenly the line was cleared by a sound as definite as the electrocutioner's switch.

“You've got something?” said the Inspector doubtfully.

“Yes. Yes,” said Ellery, with no doubt whatever, but considerable relief. “Yes, Dad, now I know whom Shakes Cooney meant!”