The Finishing Stroke (9 page)

Ellery glanced over at the little house. ‘Last night John received an “unfinished” house, tonight he receives two parts that seem to finish it. What that's supposed to mean I have no idea. But I don't believe the mysteries are going to deepen. For these events to have any rational motivation, they've got to become clearer as the game goes along. Let's see what we have so far.'

Ellery began to walk about, addressing the floor, the fire, the timbered ceiling. ‘The number of gifts has now become a variable factor. Last night's consisted of three items, tonight's of two. We may expect, then, further number-variations. Actually, these internal variations don't affect the external probability that there will be twelve groups of gifts – one for each night of Christmas. In the final count the total number of individual gifts may have some significant relationship to the number twelve. Beyond that we can't go at this time.'

His publisher asked incredulously, ‘Are you being serious, Queen?' and looked about him with a timid smile, as if to include the others in his incredulity. But no one smiled with him.

All Ellery said was, ‘I'm simply playing the game, Mr. Freeman.'

One by one they drifted off to bed, until only Ellery and John Sebastian were left in the living room.

The two young men sat before the dying fire in silence. But finally John said, ‘I can't see
any
light in this damned thing,' and got up to mix a couple of whiskies. He handed one to Ellery and sat down with the other.

‘Ellery. This sort of thing is up your alley, isn't it?'

‘Not at the moment.'

‘You know what I mean. You have the involved type of mind that sees things average dumbbells miss. At least that's your reputation. Isn't there anything in all this that makes sense to you?'

Ellery shook his head. ‘I'm over my depth, John. So far, anyway. It's probably because there are still too many unknowns.' He set his glass down. ‘Are you sure there isn't something
you
know that might help?'

The young poet was startled. ‘I? How do you mean?'

‘I know of at least one item of information you've been holding back. You said that on January sixth four things were due to happen. You'll come into your father's estate, you'll have your book published, you'll marry Rusty … and what? The fourth thing, you said, would be a surprise. What is it?'

John nibbled his lip.

‘Conceivably, John, it could have something to do with these gifts.'

‘I don't see how. In fact, I know it hasn't.' John got up and went to the whisky decanter again. ‘No, that has nothing to do with these Christmas boxes.'

Ellery said quietly, ‘And with the murder of the old man?'

‘Nothing!'

Ellery raised his brows. ‘You say that as if you aren't sure.'

‘Of course I'm sure! I'd stake my life on it.'

Ellery picked up his glass and drained it. Then he rose and said gently, ‘That may be exactly what you're doing, John. Good night.'

He went up the wide staircase slowly. He had remarked his friend's growing irritability of the past two days without attaching importance to it. Now it seemed to Ellery that it might have a secret connexion with the mystery. What was John concealing? His bewilderment at the events of the last forty-eight hours had seemed genuine enough. Was it an act?

Something made Ellery look up.

He had paused on the landing. The upper hall ran across the landing, past bedroom doors in either direction. At each end the hall made a turn to a wing beyond his vision. Two nightlights, one in each branch of the hall, dimly illuminated them.

The dark Figure of a man had appeared from around the corner of the hall to Ellery's left. As the Figure passed under the nightlight, Ellery saw the face clearly.

It was John's.

The glimpse was brief. At once John opened the door of his bedroom and disappeared.

Ellery stood on the landing feeling stupid. He had left John downstairs in the living room a minute before; how had John managed to get up here ahead of him? It wasn't possible. Unless … Of course. John must have taken the backstairs from the kitchen.

Ellery went to his room, dug out his diary, and sat down to record the events of the day and evening. But all the time he was writing, a minute thought kept picking at the lock of a dark door in his brain. It annoyed him so much that he finally stopped writing to haul the thought out into the light.

Consciously examined, it annoyed him even more.

The thought was: How had John managed to reach the upper floor via the backstairs
so fast
? True, Ellery's direct-route pace from-living-room-to-hall-up-front-stairs-to-landing had been leisurely. But John had had to traverse the length of the living room, had had to cross the dining room and enter the butler's pantry, go through the pantry into the kitchen, climb the backstairs from the kitchen up to the landing at the end of the left wing of the upstairs hall, and then walk down the length of the wing and around the corner. Did he do it on the dead run? Even at a dead run …

But aside from that … why?

In fact, why use the backstairs route at all?

Ellery shook his head, impatient with himself. The general atmosphere of hocus-pocus surrounding the grimy fact of the old man's murder, he thought, must be getting me, too.

He locked the annoying thought back in its cubby and prepared to resume work on his diary. At that moment the big grandfather clock on the main landing upstairs began to strike the hour.

Automatically, Ellery counted the strokes.

His scalp prickled.

Twelve …

He began to write angrily.

5 Third Night:
Friday, December 27, 1929

In Which a Summerhouse Sets the Scene for a Winter's Tale, and an Iron Gift Keeps the Roof of the Little House from Being Raised

After tossing for hours trying to keep the annoying thought closeted, and failing, Ellery awoke to find that he had overslept. He went downstairs Friday morning not hopefully, and he was right. Mabel was clearing the table.

‘Oh, Mr. Queen,' the Irish girl exclaimed. ‘We'd given you up. I'll set a place for you.'

‘No, no, Mabel, the late bird doesn't deserve the worm, or some such disgusting thought. Just coffee will be fine. No cream or sugar.'

‘And you so skinny!' Mabel giggled.

Ellery walked into the living room with his coffee to be greeted by jeers and a hurled copy of
The New York World.

‘Drink your coffee, read Broun and F P A, and shut up,' John Sebastian growled. ‘You're interrupting the What's-Going-On-Outside-the-Bughouse Hour.'

Everyone was reading a newspaper. Ellery wandered about, sipping his coffee and glancing over shoulders. Marius was absorbed in Lawrence Gilman's review of the Carnegie Hall début of a new young cellist, Gregor Piatigorsky. Roland Payn was studying a four-column halftone of curvaceous Helen Kane, the ‘Boop-Boopa-Doop Girl,' who was making a Christmas week appearance at the Paramount Theatre. Valentina and Ellen were reading the theatrical page, Freeman the book page, Craig the editorial page, and the Reverend Mr. Gardiner Dr. S. Parkes Cadman's counsel for the day. Dr. Dark was in the sports section, Rusty in women's fashions, and her mother – oddly – in the stock market quotations.

But it was John's choice of reading matter that interested Ellery most of all. Apparently he was being fascinated by an advertisement for a new type of electric toaster that toasted both sides of a slice of bread simultaneously.

Ellery dropped into a chair beside John and said, ‘You aren't reading at all. What's the matter, John? Didn't you sleep well? You look seedy this morning.'

John mumbled. ‘What?'

‘Skip it. I'm going to ask you what may sound like a fantastic question.'

‘Sorry. What did you say, Ellery?'

‘Last night –'

John's fogginess cleared. He glanced at Ellery sharply. ‘What about last night?'

‘When I said good night and left you alone down here, did you go directly upstairs?'

John blinked. ‘What kind of question is that?'

‘What kind of answer is that?'

‘Directly upstairs? To tell the truth, I don't –'

‘When you did go upstairs, whenever it was, did you use the front stairway or the backstairs?'

‘Backstairs?' Everything in John's face smoothed out. ‘I may have. What difference does it make?' And he buried himself in an advertisement for Rocky Ford Cigars, 5 Cents.

Ellery gave his friend a queer look.

‘Forget it,' he said pleasantly, and opened his
New York World.

He wished he could take his own advice.

It was a tense day, with a curious waiting quality. It was not improved by Sergeant Devoe, who kept popping in at unexpected moments and popping out again.

In mid-afternoon Ellery looked up from his book to find Ellen Craig toe-tapping before him.

‘What are
you
reading?'

‘Anthony Berkeley's
The Poisoned Chocolates Case
.'

‘Poisoned pig's knuckles,' Ellen said. ‘You're almost as dull as Uncle Arthur. How can everyone just sit all day? Come on out for a walk, Ellery.'

‘You have the energy of Jimmy Walker,' Ellery complained. ‘Look, dear heart, the little I've read in this thing tells me Mr. Berkeley has some wows of surprises up his British sleeve. I've got to finish it in self-defence. Go be an outdoors girl with Sergeant Devoe.'

‘I could do worse! In fact, I just almost did.' And Ellen strode off, head high.

Ellery looked apologetic, but he picked up his detective story.

Ellen went up to her room, changed into a French zipper ski suit, slipped on a pair of overshoes, jammed a white stocking cap over her curls, grabbed a pair of mittens, and ran downstairs and out onto the porch, slamming the door behind her hard enough to be heard – she hoped – in the living room.

The snow had settled greyishly under the higher temperatures of the past few days; it looked like shaved ice. Flinty clouds surrounded the sun; the slight wind had an edge. Ellen would have turned right around and gone back into the house but for her pique with Ellery.

She stepped off the porch, circled the house, and began to wade through the drifts toward the woods. The snow was criss-crossed with human tracks and had the mussed, untidy look Ellen detested. But then she caught sight of the summerhouse and her spirits rose.

The summerhouse lay a good distance from the mansion, at the edge of the woods, and it had been Ellen's favourite retreat from her uncle and Mrs. Sapphira when she was a child. Some of the most satisfactory memories of her childhood were associated with it. Here she had brought her dolls, played at being an actress or a nurse, and later dreamed of wonderful romances with the crushes of her adolescence. It had always been understood by John that the summerhouse was her private domain, not to be trespassed and sullied by a mere boy. He had occasionally dishonoured their unspoken agreement, but not often.

Ellen approached her summerhouse eagerly; she had not been inside for a long time. But then she stopped in her tracks.

Someone was in it, talking. Two people, a man and a woman, as Ellen could tell from their contrasting murmurs. She could not quite place the voices.

Disconsolate again, Ellen made a detour around the summerhouse toward the woods. And at that moment her right foot came down on a stone under the snow, her leg buckled, and she sank to her haunches with a muffled cry of pain.

‘Miss Craig! You all right?'

Ellen looked up, annoyed. It was that big trooper, and he was hurrying to her from the bush behind which he had been skulking. Ellen had no doubt whatever about his purpose in skulking. He had been trying to eavesdrop on the people in the summerhouse. Even his exclamation of concern had been uttered in a cautious tone.

‘I'm fine –' Ellen began in a loud, clear voice, when to her horror Sergeant Devoe's vast palm clamped over her mouth.

‘Sorry, miss,' the sergeant whispered, not relaxing his pressure for an instant, ‘but I've got to hear this.'

‘You big – you big Peeping Tom!' Ellen bumbled furiously. ‘Let go of me!'

He shook his massive head. ‘You'll warn 'em, miss. I don't like this any more than you do, but it's my duty. Shh!'

Very suddenly, Ellen stopped struggling. The voices in the summerhouse had risen. One was Rusty Brown's; the other belonged to Marius Carlo.

‘Yes – love!' Marius was shouting. It was really more of a yell. ‘L-o-v-e! What's the matter, do you think I'm incapable of it? Or maybe John's a better man, Gunga Din?'

‘You know perfectly well, Marius. Love has nothing to do with who's better and who's worse.' Rusty was using a
grande dame
voice, by which Ellen knew she was trying to be reasonable and preserve her dignity at the same time. ‘Marius, let go of my arm.
Marius
!' The last was a shriek of pure outrage. Scuffling sounds came from the summerhouse.

‘One kiss, just one,' Marius was panting, ‘the kiss of a man, by God, not a puling adolescent who thinks because he doesn't rhyme “love” with “shove” he's a poet. Rusty, I'm crazy about you. Crazy in love …'

Swack!

Ellen flinched. Sergeant Devoe was beginning to look sheepish.

Rusty was shrill with rage. ‘You do that again, Marius Carlo, and I'll – I'll … Call yourself a man! Making passes at me behind John's back – your best friend! Why, if John had never existed, if you were the only thing in pants in the whole cosmos …
Love
you?' Rusty laughed scornfully. ‘I've never been able to stand the
sight
of you. You turn my stomach, Marius, do you know that? Anyway, it's John I love, and it's John I'm going to marry. Is that clear?'

Marius's voice was all but unrecognizable. ‘Very clear indeed, Miss Brown. Marius the Crab revolts the fastidious Rusty Brown. Okay. So be it.'

‘And you can thank your lucky star I'm not the sort who'll go running to John about this. He'd break your neck.'

‘
That's just what I'm going to do
!'

‘Uh, uh,' Sergeant Devoe said.

‘Oh,
dear.
' Ellen realized as she said it that the sergeant's mitt had long since unsealed her mouth.

John Sebastian appeared wildly from the opposite side of the summerhouse and plunged with a howl into the shadowy interior. He must have come up from the other side noiselessly, crouched in the snow, and listened as they had been listening.

From the flimsy structure came a drumfire of boots, a thudding of blows, a snorting of male nostrils, and little half horrified, half delighted yips from the maiden who was the cause of it all. The summerhouse trembled.

Sergeant Devoe listened judiciously.

‘Don't just stand here, you lug,' Ellen snapped. ‘What are you waiting for, a couple of corpses?'

‘Those two?' The sergeant seemed surprised. ‘I guess it's time to break it up, though.' And he stalked around to the entrance, stooped, and stuck his big head into the darkness. Ellen heard him say, ‘Okay, fellows, you've had your licks. Now lay off.' When the sounds of carnage continued, Sergeant Devoe said regretfully, ‘I said lay off, didn't I, fellows?' and his monumental Figure disappeared.

Immediately Marius and John appeared side by side in the summerhouse doorway, scratching at the frosty air, a great disembodied paw clamped about each of their necks. Then the rest of the sergeant came into sight, followed by a wild-eyed Rusty. The trooper marched the two friends out into the snow.

‘Let go, you – Cardiff – troglodyte!' John panted, trying to get at Marius. ‘I'll kill the bugger!'

‘Let – him – go, officer!' Marius screamed, flailing like a symphony conductor at the climax of a Wagner festival. ‘We'll see – what bugger – kills who!'

‘No bugger's killing any bugger, and I'll remind you there's ladies present,' the sergeant said sternly. ‘You two going to be good?'

With no discernible effort on the sergeant's part, the combatants buckled at the knees and sprawled prone in the snow, where they made various swimming gestures and gulpy sounds. Sergeant Devoe, on one knee holding them there, asked Rusty plaintively, ‘How do you turn these two off, miss?'

‘You make them make up, Sergeant,' Rusty said acidly. ‘This is all a lot of hooey, anyway. Make them shake hands.'

The sergeant looked flabbergasted. At this moment Marius's face emerged from the snow like a sounding whale's, and out of his dripping mouth came a spout of language that made Ellen, crouched behind the summerhouse, put her hands to her ears. So she missed the dénouement. The last she saw of the group, Sergeant Devoe was hustling the rivals along toward the main house, speaking to them reasonably, while Rusty trotted along behind, exhorting and advising.

Ellen sighed and straightened up. Immediately her ankle flopped over and she sank into the snow again.

‘Oh,
dear
!' Ellen began to cry.

‘Physical or emotional?' asked a male voice.

Ellen squeaked and slewed about in the snow. Ellery was coming out from behind the screening bushes.

‘
You
,' Ellen said, and jumped up and fell back into the snow and began to cry again.

‘A little of both, I observe.' Ellery sprang to her side and raised her carefully. ‘Attagirl. Cry on cousin Ellery's bosom. Horrible scene, wasn't it?'

‘
You were there all the time.
'

‘Every minute,' Ellery said cheerily. ‘I circled around to get behind you and the sergeant, wondering what was up. I found out.'

‘Snoops. You
and
Sergeant Devoe. I'll never think a policeman or detective romantic again! Oh, Ellery,' Ellen wept into his shoulder, ‘what are we going to do? It's gone from bad to worse. Poor Uncle Arthur …'

‘We'll do the post-mortem later. Right now we're getting you back to the house and doing something about that ankle. Hand on my shoulder, Ellen … that's it.'

It was as they were nearing the house that Ellen suddenly uttered a cry and halted.

‘What's the matter?' Ellery asked anxiously. ‘Twist it again?'

‘No.' Ellen was star-eyed. ‘It just came to me … What were you doing out there in the first place?'

‘What was I …?'

‘I thought that book was so enthralling.'

‘It was. It is.'

‘But you decided to come with me after all.'

‘Well –'

‘You adorable man.' Ellen squeezed his hand. ‘I forgive you. I really do.'

Ellery mumbled something and they resumed their limping progress toward the house. He did not have the heart to tell the poor girl that he had deserted
The Poisoned Chocolates Case
and Mr. Berkeley's crafty divagations solely in order to trail John Sebastian across the snowy landscape.

Dinner was consumed with an attentiveness to the decorum of knife and fork and serviette that would have done credit to a delegation of Iowa schoolteachers invited to dine at the White House. Little was said beyond murmurs of ‘May I have the Yorkshire pudding, please?' and ‘Would you pass the chutney?'

Sergeant Devoe had apparently been successful in arranging a cease-fire, for the former friends addressed each other when the necessities of the table demanded, although not with any noticeable warmth. Rusty's attitude had in it something of the above-it-allness of a woman who knows that she has been fought over, and that everyone present is aware of the fact. That Valentina had heard the dismal details was evident from the way her handsome nostrils kept testing the wind throughout dinner.