The King is Dead (17 page)

It was a rather silly-looking automatic pistol. It was so snubnosed it could be concealed in a man's hand, for the barrel was only about one inch long — the entire length of the weapon was scarcely four inches. It was a German Walther of .25 calibre. For all its womanish size, Ellery knew it for a deadly little weapon, and this one had a used look. The ivory inlays on the stock were rubbed and yellow with handling, and the right side of the grip was chipped — a triangular bit of the ivory was missing from the lower right corner.

Judah was gazing at it fondly. ‘Beauty, isn't it?'

The automatic was fully loaded. Ellery emptied the magazine and chamber, dropped the little Walther into his pocket, and went to the door. By the time he had unlocked and opened it, Inspector Queen blocked the doorway.

‘What's the matter, Ellery?'

‘I've extracted Judah's teeth.' Ellery put the cartridges in his father's hand. ‘Hold on to these for me.'

‘Where the devil — Maybe he's got more!'

‘If he has, they're not in there. But I'll look again.'

Ellery relocked the door and regarded Judah thoughtfully. Why had he disclosed where the gun was? Was it a trick designed to head off still another search which would turn up a second gun — the gun Judah had intended to use from the beginning?

Ellery said to Max'l, ‘Watch him,' which was quite unnecessary, and searched Judah's two rooms and bath again. Judah kept drinking with every appearance of indifference. He made no protest when Ellery insisted on another body search. Afterwards, he redressed and reached for the bottle again.

There was no other gun, not a single cartridge.

Ellery sat down facing the thin little figure and looked it over searchingly. The man was either insane or so fogged with alcohol that he could no longer distinguish between fancy and reality. For practical purposes it really did not matter which. If the German automatic was the weapon he had meant to use, its teeth were drawn; Judah would not and could not leave the room; and it had been arranged between the Queens, with Abel Bendigo's unqualified consent, that King Bendigo would be prevented by force, if necessary, from crossing the threshold of Judah's quarters.

There was simply no way for the dedicated assassin to kill the tyrant. And if Judah's antics masked a plan whereby some bribed or hired killer was to attempt the murder, that was taken care of, too.

At exactly eleven o'clock that night King and Karla Bendigo appeared in the corridor. Six guards surrounded them. Karla was pale, but her husband was smiling.

‘Well, well,' he said to the Inspector. And are you gentlemen enjoying yourselves?'

‘Don't joke about it, Kane,' begged Karla. ‘Nothing is going to happen, but … don't joke about it.'

He squeezed her shoulder affectionately and produced a key from a tiny gold case attached to his trousers by a gold chain. Inspector Queen glanced about: two guards were at Judah Bendigo's door across the corridor, one of them with his hand on the doorknob, gripping it tightly. On the other side of that door, the Inspector knew, Judah was guarded by Max'l and Ellery. Even so, he was taking no chances.

‘One minute, Mr. Bendigo.' King had unlocked the massive door and Karla was about to precede him into the Confidential Room. ‘I have to ask you to let me search this room before you step inside.'

The Inspector was already in the doorway, barring the way.

King stared. ‘I was told you searched it this afternoon.'

‘That was this afternoon, Mr. Bendigo.' The Inspector did not move.

‘All right!' King stepped back peevishly. Three guards managed to slip between him and the doorway. They stood there shoulder to shoulder. Something about the manoeuvre restored the magnate's good humour. ‘What's he had you men doing today, rehearsing? You did that like a line of chorus girls!'

The room was exactly as the Inspector had left it during the afternoon. Nevertheless he prowled about, glancing everywhere — at the filing cases, the desks, the chairs, the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

‘Mr. Bendigo, I want your permission to look in these desks and filing cases.'

‘Denied,' came the brusque answer.

‘I've got to insist, Mr. Bendigo.'

‘Insist?'

‘Mr. Bendigo.' The Inspector came to the doorway. ‘I've been given a serious responsibility by your brother, Abel. If you refuse to let me handle this as I think it ought to be handled, I have your brother's permission to keep you from entering this room — by force, if necessary. Mr. Abel wanted your consent to my searching those drawers and cases, but he recognizes the necessity for it. Do you want to see his personal authorization?'

The black eyes engulfed him. ‘Abel knows that no one outside my family — no one! — is allowed to see the contents of those drawers.'

‘I promise not to read a single paper, Mr. Bendigo. What I'm looking for is a possible booby trap or time bomb. A glance in a drawer will tell me that.'

King Bendigo did not reply for several moments.

‘Kane. Do whatever they say. Please.' Karla's voice sounded as if her tongue were stiff.

He shrugged and unhooked the little gold case from the end of his chain. ‘This key unlocks the file drawers. This one the drawers of my desk. The drawers of the small desk are not locked.'

The Inspector took the two keys. ‘Would you permit me to shut this door while I search?'

‘Certainly not!'

‘Then I must ask you and Mrs. Bendigo to step aside, out of range of the doorway. These three guards,' the Inspector added with a certain bitterness, ‘can keep watching
me.'

He searched thoroughly.

When he came out into the corridor he said, ‘One thing more, Mr. Bendigo. Is there a concealed compartment of any kind in that room, or a concealed door, or a panel, or a passageway, or anything of that sort? Anything of that sort whatsoever?'

‘No.' The big man was fuming at the delay.

The Inspector handed him the two keys. ‘Then it's all right for you to go in.'

When the master of the Bendigo empire had entered the Confidential Room followed by his wife, and the great door had swung shut, Inspector Queen tried the door. But it had locked automatically; he could not budge it.

He set his back against the door and said to one of the guards, ‘Do you have a cigarette?' Ellery's father resorted to cigarettes only in times of great stress. For the first time it had occurred to the Inspector that he had just risked being blown into his component parts to save the life of a man whose death under other circumstances would have caused him no more, perhaps, than a mild humanitarian regret.

Judah was well into his current bottle of Segonzac, and by 11.20 p.m. it was almost empty and he had settled down to serious drinking. He had politely inquired if he might play some music, and when Ellery, before consenting, re-examined the record-player, Judah shook his head dolefully as if in sorrow at the suspicious nature of man.

‘Don't go near those albums,' said Ellery. ‘I'll get what you want.'

‘Do you suspect my music?' exclaimed Judah.

‘You can't have a weapon concealed in those albums,' retorted Ellery, ‘but there might be a cartridge tucked away in one of them that I somehow missed. You sit just where you are, impaled by Max'l's glittering eye. I'll handle your music. What would you like to hear?'

‘You would suspect Mozart. Mozart!'

‘In a situation like this, Judah, I'd suspect Orpheus. Mozart?' ‘The Finale of the C Major symphony — there, the Forty-first. There's nothing as grand in human expression except parts of Shakespeare and the most inspired flights of Bach.'

‘Window dressing,' muttered Ellery, perhaps unjustly; and for a few minutes he listened with grudging pleasure to l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Ansermet. Judah grudged nothing. He sprawled in the chair behind his desk, a snifter between his palms, eyes wide and shining.

Mozart was in full swing when Ellery glanced at his watch and saw it was 11.32. He nodded at Max'l, who was as impervious to the counterpoint as a Gila monster, went quietly to the door, and unlocked it. Before pulling it open, he glanced back at Judah. Judah was smiling.

At the sound of the door the Inspector came quickly across the corridor. He blocked the opening with his back, still watching the door of the Confidential Room.

‘Everything all right, Dad?'

‘Yes.'

‘King and Karla still in there?'

‘The door hasn't been open since they went in.'

Ellery nodded. He was not surprised to see Abel Bendigo across the hall, standing among the guards before the locked room. Abel glanced at Ellery anxiously and came over to join them.

‘I couldn't work. It's ridiculous, but I couldn't. How has Judah been, Mr. Queen?'

‘He's hard to figure out. Tell me, Mr. Bendigo — does your brother Judah have any history of mental disturbance?'

Abel said: ‘Because he's threatened to kill King?'

‘No. Because even though he knows we're aware of his intentions, he still talks as if he's going to do it.'

‘He can't, can he?' Abel said it quickly.

‘Impossible. But it's a word he apparently doesn't recognize.'

‘Judah has always been a little peculiar. Of course, his drinking …'

‘How far back does his alcoholism go?'

‘A good many years. Do you think I ought to talk to him, Mr. Queen?'

‘No.'

Abel nodded. He went back across the hall.

‘He didn't answer the question,' remarked the Inspector.

Ellery shrugged and shut the door. He turned the key and put it back in his pocket.

When the symphony was over, Ellery put the records away. He turned from the album shelves to find Judah regarding his empty glass. The would-be fratricide picked up the cognac bottle and tilted it. Nothing came out. He grasped both arms of his chair, raising himself.

‘Where are you going?' asked Ellery.

‘Get another bottle.'

‘Stay there. I'll get it for you.'

Ellery went behind the Bechstein and took a new bottle of Segonzac from the case on top of the pile. Judah was fumbling in his pockets. Finally he produced his pocket-knife.

‘I'll open it for you.'

Ellery took the knife from him, slit the tax stamp, and scraped the hardened seal off the bottle's mouth. The knife had a corkscrew attachment; with it Ellery drew the cork. He placed the bottle on the desk beside the empty glass.

‘I think,' he murmured, ‘I'll borrow this, Judah.'

Judah followed his knife in its course to Ellery's trouser pocket. Then he picked up the bottle.

Ellery glanced at his watch.

11.46.

At 11.53 Ellery said to Max'l: ‘Get in front of him. I'll be right back.'

Max'l got up and went to the desk, facing Judah seated behind it. The great back blocked Judah out.

Ellery unlocked the door, slipped outside, relocked the door from the corridor.

His father, Abel Bendigo, and the guards had not changed position.

‘Still in there?'

‘Still in there, son.'

‘The door hasn't been opened at all?'

‘No.'

‘Let's check.'

Ellery rapped.

‘But Judah …' Abel glanced across the corridor.

‘Max is standing over him, the door's locked, and the key's in my pocket. Mr. Bendigo!' Ellery rapped again.

After a moment the lock turned over. The guards stiffened. The door opened and King Bendigo towered there. He was in his shirt sleeves. At the secretarial desk, Karla twisted about, looking toward the door a little blankly.

‘Well?' snapped the big man.

‘Just making sure everything's all right, Mr. Bendigo.'

‘I'm still here.' He noticed Abel. ‘Abel? Finish with those people so early?'

‘I'll wind it up in the morning.' Abel was tight-lipped. ‘Go in, King. Go back in.'

‘Oh —!' The disgusted exclamation was lost in the slam of the door. The Inspector tried it. Locked.

Ellery looked at his watch again.

11.56.30.

‘He's not to open that door again until well after midnight,' he said. He ran across the hall.

When Ellery relocked Judah's door from inside, Max'l backed away from the desk and padded to the door to set his shoulders against it.

‘What did he do, Max?'

Max'l grinned.

‘I drank cognac,' said Judah dreamily. He raised the snifter.

Ellery went around the desk and stood over him.

11.57.20.

‘Time's a-ticking, Judah,' he murmured. He wondered how Judah was going to handle the moment of supreme reality, when he was face to face at last with the stroke of midnight.

He kept looking down at the slight figure in the chair. In spite of himself, Ellery felt his muscles tighten.

Two minutes to midnight.

Judah glanced at the watch on his thin wrist and set the empty glass down.

And turned in his chair, looking up at Ellery.

‘Will you please be good enough,' he said, ‘to give me my Walther?

‘This?' Ellery took the little automatic out of his pocket. ‘I'm afraid there isn't much you can do with it, Judah.'

Judah presented his upturned palm.

There was nothing to be read in his eyes. The light Ellery saw in them might be mockery, but he was more inclined to ascribe it to cognac. Unless …

Because he was what he was, Ellery examined the Walther, which had not left his pocket since he had removed its ammunition.

The automatic, of course, was empty. Nevertheless, Ellery examined it even more closely than before. It might be a trick gun. It might, somehow, conceal a bullet, and a pressure somewhere might discharge it. Ellery had never heard of a gun like that, but it was possible.

Not in this case, however. This was an orthodox German Walther. Ellery had handled dozens of them. It was an orthodox German Walther and it was not loaded.