American Gun Mystery (19 page)

The Inspector threw up his hands. “There you are, Major. That’s what I’ve been putting up with all my life. A—a—”

“A sophist?” suggested Ellery sadly.

The old man glared. “When you get through speakin’ in riddles, you’ll find me downtown at h.q. ’Bye, Major. Thanks.” And he stalked out in a huff, followed obediently by Sergeant Velie and a yawning Hesse.

“Poor dad,” sighed Ellery. “He’s always peeved at my little circumlocutions. And yet, Major, for the life of me I couldn’t make it clearer. This time I’m in dead earnest.”

“But you said you
know,
” began Kirby in a puzzled way.

“My dear Major, the fact that I know the superficial truth is—believe me—the least important feature of this ghastly business. I wish I knew the two things I
don’t
know. There’s the rub; I don’t, and the Lord alone knows when I will, if ever.”

The Major chuckled. “Well, it’s too much for me. Now I’ve got to get back on the job. Remember—I’m at your service, Mr. Queen. Especially when you discover the answer to those two mysteries!”

“Always the newsgatherer, eh? May I have these prints?”

“Certainly.”

Ellery strolled up Broadway, the prints in an envelope under his arm. His brow was like an old-fashioned washboard. He sucked at a cigaret which he had forgotten to light.

He came to himself with a start, searched for a streetsign, got his bearings, paused to light the cigaret, and then turned down a side street and walked rapidly toward Eighth Avenue. A hundred feet from the corner he stopped before a small building characterized by marble facing, deeply incised letters, and iron bars. The letters said:
Seaboard National Bank & Trust Company.
He went through the revolving door and sought the Manager.

“I’m investigating the Horne murder,” he said pleasantly, flashing his special police card.

The Manager blinked nervously. “Oh! I see. I’ve been sort of expecting a call. Really, we know very little about Mr. Horne—”

“Enough for my purposes,” smiled Ellery. “But I’m also interested in one of your other customers who’s very much alive.”

“Yes?” said the Manager blankly.

“William Grant—I presume that’s the way he signs his checks.”

“Grant! You mean the rodeo man? Wild Bill Grant?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm,” said the Manager, and rubbed his chin abrasively. “What is it you want to find out about Mr. Grant?”

“Horne made out a check in the amount of twenty-five dollars,” explained Ellery patiently, “the afternoon of his murder. It was made out to Grant. I want to see that check.”

“Oh,” said the Manager again. “I—Did Grant deposit it?”

“Yes.”

“One moment, please.” The Manager rose and disappeared through the grilled door leading to the cashiers’ cages, and returned after five minutes with an oblong of paper. “Here it is. Horne and Grant both being customers of ours, the voucher was merely canceled by the teller, photographed—we photograph all checks, you know—and kept on file for Mr. Horne’s monthly statement.”

“Yes, yes, I know all that,” said Ellery briskly. “Let’s have it.”

He took the canceled check from the Manager and examined it. A moment’s scrutiny, and he placed the check on the desk.

“Very good. Now may I have a peep at Horne’s account-card?”

The Manager hesitated. “Well, matters like that are confidential, you know—”

“Police,” said Ellery sternly, and the Manager bowed meekly and went off again, to return with a large stiff record-card.

“Mr. Horne was a customer of this bank for only a few days, you know,” he said nervously. “There are only a few entries—”

Ellery looked over the card. There were five items noted. Four of them were small amounts—personal checks, apparently, for minor expenditures. But the fifth made Ellery whistle, and the Manager more nervous than before.

“Three thousand dollars!” exclaimed Ellery. “Why, he deposited only five thousand altogether in opening the account! Interesting, eh? I’d like to see that check and the teller who handled the transaction.”

Both were forthcoming after a little delay.

The check proved to be made out to cash, signed properly and authentically by Horne—who, having surrendered his original given name to the mists of antiquity, always wrote “Buck” before his surname—and was also properly endorsed by Horne.

“Did Horne himself cash this check?” Ellery asked the teller.

“Oh, yes, sir. I handled it myself.”

“Do you recall how he seemed while you were waiting on him? Was he preoccupied, jolly, nervous—what?”

The teller looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s my imagination, but I got the notion he was worried about something. And he seemed sort of absent-minded—hardly heard what I said, but just watched me putting the bills together in a desperate sort of way.”

“Hmm. Did he ask for the amount in any specific fashion?”

“Yes, sir. He said for me to give him the three thousand in small bills. Nothing over a twenty.”

“This was two days ago—the day before the murder?”

“Yes, sir. In the morning.”

“I see. Thank you—both. Good day.”

Ellery strode out of the bank with knit brows. He recalled now that only thirty dollars had been found on Horne’s body, and no money at all in Horne’s room at the Barclay. He hesitated a moment, and then went into a cigar-store to a telephone booth.

He got Police Headquarters on the wire and asked for Inspector Queen. The Inspector was not in. Evidently he had not yet reached Headquarters from the offices of the newsreel company.

Ellery went out, looked about, and then crossed Broadway. He found a telegraph office, and went in. He spent ten minutes in the composition of a long message addressed to Hollywood, California. The wire paid for, he sought a telephone booth in the telegraph office and once more called Spring 3100. This time he was successful.

“Dad? Ellery. Did you get a complete report on the contents of Buck Horne’s dressing room at the
Colosseum?
…I’ll hold on. …Yes? Well, was any cash found in Horne’s room? …None at all, eh? Hmm. …No, nothing special. I’ve been meandering about. …I’ll be downtown directly.”

He hung up and went out, heading for the subway.

Twenty minutes later he was seated in his father’s office, drawling a recital of his discoveries at the bank.

The Inspector was extraordinarily interested. “Withdrew three grand two days ago, hey? Well, well. That’s kind of hot, son.” He grinned. “Do you realize that that was the same day he had his mysterious visitor at the hotel?”

“Perfectly. The sequence—if it is a sequence—seems to be about as follows. Horne visits his bank only a few days after he has made a deposit of five thousand dollars, and withdraws three thousand of it in small bills. That very night he has a mysterious visitor. And the next day he is murdered. …” He frowned. “Doesn’t seem to fit, eh?”

“Not the murder part of it. But you can’t tell,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “If—mind you, I say
if—
if you put the withdrawal of the three grand and the visitor together, you get something that looks almighty like blackmail. But then, if that’s so, why the bump-off? Does a blackmailer kill his victim? Well, sometimes. Not most times, though—unless he’d sucked him dry. …” He shook his head impatiently. “It’ll have to be looked into. I’m trying to trace his visitor, but it seems an impossible job. By the way, I got Sam Prouty’s autopsy-report this morning.”

Ellery started. “I’d forgotten completely about it! What did he say?”

“Nothing. Plain nothing,” grumbled the Inspector. “Couldn’t add a single item to what he told us on the scene.”

“Oh, that!” said Ellery with a flirt of his hand. “I didn’t mean
that.
The stomach, dad, the stomach—that’s what I’m interested in. Didn’t Prouty say?”

“He said,” said the Inspector glumly. “Sure he said. He said Horne hadn’t eaten for a good six hours before his death—maybe more.”

Ellery blinked; then quickly he began to examine a fingernail. “Is that so?” he murmured. “Well, well”

“Well, what?”

“Eh? Oh, nothing, anything new?”

“Look at this.” The Inspector rummaged through his desk and brought out a tabloid newspaper folded back, with something on the revealed page heavily ringed in red pencil. “Before I show you this. Doc also said there was no trace of poison in Horne’s innards.”

“Poison? Poison? Lord love that man! …What’s that you’ve got?”

“Read what Santa Claus brought this morning.”

“Lyons?” asked Ellery absently, extending a long arm.

“Yump,” groaned the Inspector. “This Lyons bird is better than a whole Homicide Squad. Sees all, knows all, hears all. I’d like to wring his blasted neck!”

Lyons’s column of gossip and Broadway prattle was, as might have been expected, replete with tasty little items concerning the Horne murder. It spared no one, least of all the Inspector. The pertinent names loomed large in the column—Kit Horne, Wild Bill Grant, Tommy Black, Julian Hunter, Tony Mars, Mara Gay. …One item was rather amusing. “Detec-stiff Inspector Queen thought ye ed—the kid himself—might have bumped the Great Bucko just because ye ed had a little gat in his didies. Go rest, old man, go rest! You need one.”

“Ah,” said Ellery with a chuckle, “the well-known Bronx gesture. What’s this?” His eyes narrowed. Near the foot of the column there was an innocent-seeming paragraph which took on the color of vitriol on closer examination.

“And what big-wig of the hardburly-girly clubs,” Ted Lyons asked derisively, “who was present in the flash when some unknown gladiator popped off the w.k. Buck Horne at the
Colosseum
last p.m.—not only was all set to fi-Nance said flicker fav-Writ’s return to the Silly Screen but is also ‘secretly’ the dark horse behind Cauliflower Row’s latest White Hope?”

“Now I wonder,” snapped the Inspector, “how the devil Lyons found
that
out.”

“My amazement is rather more pointed,” murmured Ellery. “I wonder if Tony Mars knows it. Hunter backing Black, eh? On the q.t. I see the possibilities. …Well, dad,” he jumped to his feet, “I can’t dawdle. Got to see Knowles,” and he made for the door.

“Hold your horses a minute. What did you mean this morning when you said you knew who—”

“Fo’give me, pater,” cried Ellery in haste, “I should never have opened my mouth. You’ll find out; you’d think me a lunatic if I said any more now. See you later,” and he hurried from the Inspector’s office.

He made his way to Room 114; and there found Lieutenant Knowles busy with a collection of colored cards.

“Damned nuisance, this filing system,” growled the ballistics expert without looking up, “but how it helps sometimes in court! Well, Mr. Queen, what’s the good word? Any more artillery?”

“There’s no relief from the war,” laughed Ellery, and produced from his overcoat pocket the ivory-handled .45 calibre revolver he had found in Buck Horne’s hotel room during the early hours.

“Say, haven’t I seen that rod before?” asked Lieutenant Knowles sharply, taking up the weapon. Ellery shook his head. “Then it must be its twin brother. I’ve got one just like it in the batch that came over from the
Colosseum!”

“You certainly have. And it
is
a twin. The two belonged to Horne, except that this fellow was left behind in his wardrobe trunk.”

“She sure is one pip,” said Knowles with appreciation. “These old babies sometimes are. Little old-fashioned in type and design, but it’s like stamps. I’m an amateur stamp-collector, you know. The older they are the nicer they are. I’ve got—”

“I know, I know,” said Ellery, wincing. “I’ve met philatelists before. What I want to know is—”

“Whether this could have fired the bullet that killed Horne?” Knowles shook his head. “I told you it could only be a .25, and an automatic to boot.”

“Yes, yes, I know that.” Ellery sat down on the expert’s laboratory table. “Have you got the mate to this handy?”

“In the file, all tagged.” The Lieutenant went to a large cabinet, pulled out a drawer, and came back with the first Horne revolver. “Now what do you want to know?”

“Pick up both revolvers,” said Ellery queerly. “One in each hand, Lieutenant.”

Rather wonderingly, the expert obeyed. “Now what?”

“Was it my imagination, or am I right in believing that one of these weapons is a trifle heavier than the others?”

“Knowles, old boy, you’re always being asked the craziest questions!” said the Lieutenant with a burst of laughter. “Good God, Queen, is that all? Why so serious? Find out for you in a minute. As a matter of fact, one of ’em
does
feel a mite heftier than the other. But I’ll make sure.”

He dumped the revolvers one at a time on a scale. And he nodded. “Yes,
sir.
This baby with the tag is almost a full two ounces heavier than the other.”

“Ah,” said Ellery with satisfaction. “How very nice.”

The expert squinted at him. “No question, I suppose, about the authentic ownership of the two revolvers? I mean—they both really belonged to Horne, didn’t they?”

“Heavens, yes,” said Ellery. “No question about that at all. Lieutenant, you’d be amazed if I told you what your scale has confirmed for me.” Then he rubbed his palms together. “How beautifully it works out!” he sighed, and grinned. “You might tag that second one, Lieutenant, for filing and reference. We’ll probably have to give ’em all back soon. Meanwhile hold on to them. By the way!” He began to scowl. Do you think that tagged revolver was deliberately manufactured to be heavier than the other one? You know, they were both made at the same time—specially made for Horne.”

“Quite likely,” assented Lieutenant Knowles. “If Horne was a two-gun man—carrying ’em as he did in pairs—he probably wanted each one to fit the feel of his hand. Not necessarily so,” he added hastily. “Might have been an accident in manufacture. Some of the oldest short arms weren’t made any too carefully.”

“I should say these were made very carefully,” said Ellery. “Well, Lieutenant, thanks for a profitable ten minutes. See you some time.”

And he quickly left the office of the Bureau of Ballistics. Outside in the corridor he stopped smiling, and for a moment polished the lenses of his
pince-nez
reflectively.