The Four Johns

The Four Johns

Ellery Queen

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

CAST OF CHARACTERS

M
ERVYN
G
RAY
—A professorial Adonis—but even he doesn't know where the body is buried

S
USAN
H
AZELWOOD
—A mercurial, volatile, but unknown quantity in the professor's equation of love and death

M
ARY
H
AZELWOOD
—One of the busiest bodies on the campus, she had more Johns in her life than Polly Adler

Mary's Johns
:

John Boce
—To this no-count accountant, “round numbers are always false,” but Mary's well-rounded figure has him guessing

John Thompson
—Persuasive, hedonistic, and enterprising, a librarian who likes his assistants well stacked

John Viviano
—This fashion photographer's shutterwork makes all the models swoon or shudder, but he's got eyes for Mary

John Pilgrim
—A Beatnik of Distinction whose verse has lost its beat

H
ARRIET
B
RILL
—A psyche-starved sexologist; her brains, unfortunately, are in her head

B
RIDEY
K
ELLY
—When this retired teacher takes a fall, she brings the house down

P
ROFESSOR
B
URTON
—Mervyn's
bête noire;
an irascible old Airedale whose bite is worse than his bark

F
RANK
V
IVIANO
—This unattractive photographer is undoubtedly at his best in the darkroom: he helps develop a frame for his brother, John

V
ARELLA
—A local-Expresso with a name like a lobbyist's overcoat, she indulges in fast friendships and slow takes

M
RS
. T
HOMPSON
—A surprise to everyone but her husband—who will cut a rug and the mustard, but not the lawn

R
ICHARD
T
AKAHASHI
—His detection methods are as uncompromising as his butch haircut

There are three Johns: 1, the real John, known only to his Maker; 2, John's ideal John, never the real one, and often very unlike him; 3 … never the real John, nor John's John, but often very unlike either.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes,
The

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

EXCERPT

Mervyn Gray sat in a booth at the rear of the Parnassus Coffee Shop, near the University of California in Berkeley. He was studying a sheet of paper on which he had written four names. Hours ago he had ordered coffee. From time to time he reached out, groped for his cup, and made the rediscovery that the coffee was cold.

The waitress had already served him two refills. The hour was late and closing time was at hand; she was eager that he take his troubles elsewhere. A student at the university in the process of flunking his finals, she assessed him—sleepless, undernourished, haunted by worry. Students had flunked before, students would flunk again; this young man, for all his despair, undoubtedly would survive.

The waitress was wrong on all counts. Mervyn Gray was not a student; he was a teaching assistant. And he felt not at all confident of survival. Two days ago he had been almost poisoned; yesterday a bullet had missed his head by inches; tomorrow, if his unidentified enemy was to be believed—and Mervyn believed him—Mervyn would be dead.

The obvious recourse, a complaint to the police, could not be considered for just as obvious reasons. For better or worse, the issue lay between himself and his enemy—an enemy who, so far as Mervyn could see, had every advantage.

He rubbed his temples. Four names; four men. Which? He stared at the paper, hoping desperately for inspiration.

But he had to shake his buzzing head. He reached for his cup, and at last took note that the coffee was cold. He drank it anyway, and closed his eyes. The lids felt stiff and harsh; he raised them.
Which
?

With infinite care he arranged his thoughts. A problem existed, so a solution must exist. He reviewed his chain of logic, tracing it from the events of Friday, June fourteenth, across a week and a half of time and a sizable area of space, to June twenty-fourth, back at Berkeley. The weakest link of the chain, deriving from Harriet Brill and Susie Hazelwood, lay at the very start. Still he must begin somewhere, no matter how confusing the source. In which case the chain once more led to the four names on his list—where it stopped.

He stood too close to the problem: this was the main difficulty. Somehow he had to move back, disengage himself, achieve a perspective. Easier said than done. Or if there were a way of defining the variables, so that he might cope with them one by one … Mervyn felt as if he were being smothered under an ocean of dandelion fluff.

He drew a deep breath, once more hunched forward over the list. Someone, methodically, with infinite malice, was attempting to destroy him, one of four men: which? Was there no means to isolate him from the innocent three? A reagent to dye him with the color of guilt? If I were a psychologist, God forbid, Mervyn thought, I might conceivably devise a series of tests: ink blots that had the look of faces with dead eye sockets, or mint-green Chevrolet convertibles.… Or word associations:

Love (hate)

Excitement (Mary)

Road (south)

Car (vanish)

John (which?)

Multiple-choice questions:

Your name is X. You hate a man named Mervyn Gray (M.G.).

You therefore:

(a) go to M.G. frankly, explain your grievances, and try to arrive at an accommodation.

(b) reveal your feelings to mutual friends, so that they will know M.G. for the villain he is.

(c) revenge yourself upon M.G. by a series of harassments.

(d) decide that it's best to live and let live, and thereafter ignore M.G.

(e) kill M.G.

Mervyn grinned a crooked grin. Devising the tests was simple enough; it was what was down back that counted.

Now he listlessly sketched out a chart, rating the four names against a list of attributes, on a scale of 0 to 10:

Mervyn was not displeased with the chart. The method was arbitrary, the headings vague, the estimates subjective, but the summations approximated his own intuitive judgment. His amusement, sad as it was, soon drained to a trickle and disappeared. Charts, guesses, intuitions: useless. Everything was useless. He was fighting a shadow. He clenched his fists, filled with a sudden anger.

Problem: solution.

John.

John who?
Which
John?

Into the coffee shop came a blond girl of twenty wearing a gray skirt and a heavy dark-brown sweater. In a group of high-school freshmen she would have gone unnoticed: she was not tall, and her figure just evaded boyishness. But her features were mercurial, now fey, now mischievous, now guileless as a baby's, now cunning and wise, even sly.

At sight of Mervyn Gray she hesitated, instantly pensive. Then she walked along the line of booths and slid into the seat opposite him.

Mervyn looked up blankly. “Susie.”

“You're out late,” said Susie Hazelwood. She glanced down at the sheet of paper on which Mervyn had constructed his chart. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket. Susie said derisively, “Secrets?”

Mervyn spoke from the depths of his soul. “I wish I hadn't any.”

“My secrets are all so trivial. I hardly think I'd miss them.”

The waitress came to the booth. “We're closing in five minutes.”

“Just coffee,” said Susie. “With cream.” Mervyn was scowling past her at the door. Susie glanced over her shoulder. “Somebody you know?”

“Our friend and neighbor, Harriet. Weird woman. She started to come in and changed her mind. Possibly because she saw me.”

“Harriet thinks you're mad. You and your idiotic game.”

“Which idiotic game?”

Pursing her lips, Susie mimicked his voice. “‘I really do wish the moon were made of green cheese. There was never enough cheese at home; we used it for prizes in our Monopoly games, which my father always won. He used loaded dice, which is why I hate my father.'”

“
That
game.”

“You underestimate Harriet,” said Susie. “She knows exactly what you're up to, and considers you a lunatic anyway.”

“Harriet is very discerning.”

“I think you just hate psychologists.”

“Just psychologists named Harriet.”

The waitress brought Susie a cup of coffee. Mervyn watched while Susie poured in cream. Then he leaned forward. “Speaking of secrets, tell me one of yours.”

Susie, stirring the coffee, smiled. “I have so few.”

“Why did your sister Mary leave for Los Angeles?”

Susie reflected. “I might tell you,” she said presently, “if I really knew, which I don't. Not really.”

Mervyn looked politely incredulous. “Your own sister?”

“Or I might guess,” said Susie with a shrug, “if I knew why you were interested. Of course, you were—you are—in love with her. I suppose that's reason enough.” There was a suggestion of hostility in Susie's voice. “You do love Mary, don't you?”

Mervyn smiled the crooked smile. “What do you mean by love? It occurs on so many levels. Worshipful love. Puppy love. Carnal love. The love of a cowboy for his horse. Mother love.”

“Mary is not a church, or a puppy, or carnal. She's neither a cowboy nor a horse. Or a mother.”

“In all likelihood I love you. Do you love me? Honestly, now.”