The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (4 page)

Ellery shook his head in a dogged way, trying to clear it. “There's something about your house, Doctor, that's unusually soporific. Thank you, I think both Thorne and I would appreciate a brisk wash.”

“You'll find it brisk enough,” said the fat man, shaking with silent laughter. “This is the forest primeval, you know. Not only haven't we any electric light or gas or telephone, but we've no running water, either. Well behind the house keeps us supplied. The simple life, eh? Better for you than the pampering influences of modern civilization. Our ancestors may have died more easily of bacterial infections, but I'll wager they had a greater body immunity to coryza!… Well, well, enough of this prattle. Up you go.”

The chilly corridor upstairs made them shiver, but the very shiver revived them; Ellery felt better at once. Dr. Reinach, carrying candles and matches, showed Thorne into a room overlooking the front of the house, and Ellery into one on the side. A fire burned crisply in the large fireplace in one corner, and the basin on the old-fashioned washstand was filled with icy-looking water.

“Hope you find it comfortable,” drawled the fat man, lounging in the doorway. “We were expecting only Thorne and my niece, but one more can always be accommodated. Ah—colleague of Thorne's, I believe he said?”

“Twice,” replied Ellery. “If you don't mind—”

“Not at all.” Reinach lingered, eyeing Ellery with a smile. Ellery shrugged, stripped off his coat, and made his ablutions. The water
was
cold; it nipped his fingers like the mouths of little fishes. He scrubbed his face vigorously.

“That's better,” he said, drying himself. “Much. I wonder why I felt so peaked downstairs.”

“Sudden contrast of heat after cold, no doubt.” Dr. Reinach made no move to go.

Ellery shrugged again. He opened his bag with pointed nonchalance. There, plainly revealed on his haberdashery, lay the .38 police revolver. He tossed it aside.

“Do you always carry a gun, Mr. Queen?” murmured Dr. Reinach.

“Always.” Ellery picked up the revolver and slipped it into his hip pocket.

“Charming!” The fat man stroked his triple chin. “Charming. Well, Mr. Queen, if you'll excuse me I'll see how Thorne is getting on. Stubborn fellow, Thorne. He could have taken pot luck with us this past week, but he insisted on isolating himself in that filthy den next door.”

“I wonder,” murmured Ellery, “why.”

Dr. Reinach eyed him. Then he said: “Come downstairs when you're ready. Mrs. Reinach has an excellent dinner prepared and if you're as hungry as I am, you'll appreciate it.” Still smiling, the fat man vanished.

Ellery stood still for a moment, listening. He heard the fat man pause at the end of the corridor; a moment later the heavy tread was audible again, this time descending the stairs.

Ellery went swiftly to the door on tiptoe. He had noticed that the instant he had come into the room.

There was no lock. Where a lock had been there was a splintery hole, and the splinters had a newish look about them. Frowning, he placed a rickety chair against the doorknob and began to prowl.

He raised the mattress from the heavy wooden bedstead and poked beneath it, searching for he knew not what. He opened closets and drawers; he felt the worn carpet for wires.

But after ten minutes, angry with himself, he gave up and went to the window. The prospect was so dismal that he scowled in sheer misery. Just brown stripped woods and the leaden sky; the old mansion picturesquely known as the Black House was on the other side, invisible from this window.

A veiled sun was setting; a bank of storm clouds slipped aside for an instant and the brilliant rim of the sun shone directly into his eyes, making him see colored, dancing balls. Then other clouds, fat with snow, moved up and the sun slipped below the horizon. The room darkened rapidly.

Lock taken out, eh? Someone had worked fast. They could not have known he was coming, of course. Then someone must have seen him through the window as the car stopped in the drive. The old woman who had peered out for a moment? Ellery wondered where she was. At any rate, a few minutes' work by a skilled hand at the door … He wondered, too, if Thorne's door had been similarly mutilated. And Alice Mayhew's.

Thorne and Dr. Reinach were already seated before the fire when Ellery came down, and the fat man was rumbling: “Just as well. Give the poor girl a chance to return to normal. With the shock she's had today, it might be the finisher. I've told Mrs. Reinach to break it to Sarah gently.… Ah, Queen. Come over here and join us. We'll have dinner as soon as Alice comes down.”

“Dr. Reinach was just apologizing,” said Thorne casually, “for this Aunt Sarah of Miss Mayhew's—Mrs. Fell, Sylvester Mayhew's sister. The excitement of anticipating her niece's arrival seems to have been a bit too much for her.”

“Indeed,” said Ellery, sitting down and planting his feet on the nearest firedog.

“Fact is,” said the fat man,” “my poor half-sister is cracked. The family paranoia. She's off-balance; not violent, you know, but it's wise to humor her. She isn't normal, and for Alice to see her—”

“Paranoia,” said Ellery. “An unfortunate family, it seems. Your half-brother Sylvester's weakness seems to have expressed itself in rubbish and solitude. What's Mrs. Fell's delusion?”

“Common enough—she thinks her daughter is still alive. As a matter of fact, poor Olivia was killed in an automobile accident three years ago. It shocked Sarah's maternal instinct out of plumb. Sarah's been looking forward to seeing Alice, her brother's daughter, and it may prove awkward. Never can tell how a diseased mind will react to an unusual situation.”

“For that matter,” drawled Ellery, “I should have said the same remark might be made about any mind, diseased or not.”

Dr. Reinach laughed silently. Thorne, hunched by the fire, said: “This Keith boy.”

The fat man set his glass down slowly. “Drink, Queen?”

“No, thank you.”

“This Keith boy,” said Thorne again.

“Eh? Oh, Nick. Yes, Thorne? What about him?”

The lawyer shrugged. Dr. Reinach picked up his glass again. “Am I imagining things, or is there the vaguest hint of hostility in the circumambient ether?”

“Reinach—” began Thorne harshly.

“Don't worry about Keith, Thorne. We let him pretty much alone. He's sour on the world, which demonstrates his good sense; but I'm afraid he's unlike me in that he hasn't the emotional buoyancy to rise above his wisdom. You'll probably find him anti-social.… Ah, there you are, my dear! Lovely, lovely.”

Alice was wearing a different gown, a simple unfrilled frock, and she had freshened up. There was color in her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with a light and tinge they had not had before. Seeing her for the first time without her hat and coat, Ellery thought she looked different, as all women contrive to look different divested of their outer clothing and refurbished by the mysterious activities which go on behind the closed doors of feminine dressing rooms. Apparently the ministrations of another woman, too, had cheered her; there were still rings under her eyes, but her smile was more cheerful.

“Thank you, Uncle Herbert.” Her voice was slightly husky. “But I do think I've caught a nasty cold.”

“Whisky and hot lemonade,” said the fat man promptly. “Eat lightly and go to bed early.”

“To tell the truth, I'm famished.”

“Then eat as much as you like. I'm one hell of a physician, as no doubt you've already detected. Shall we go in to dinner?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Reinach in a frightened voice. “We shan't wait for Sarah or Nicholas.”

Alice's eyes dulled a little. Then she sighed and took the fat man's arm and they all trooped into the dining room.

Dinner was a failure. Dr. Reinach divided his energies between gargantuan inroads on the viands and copious drinking. Mrs. Reinach donned an apron and served, scarcely touching her own food in her haste to prepare the next course and clear the plates; apparently the household employed no domestic. Alice gradually lost her color, the old strained look reappearing on her face; occasionally she cleared her throat. The oil lamp on the table flickered badly, and every mouthful Ellery swallowed was flavored with the taste of oil. Besides, the
pièce de résistance
was curried lamb; if there was one dish he detested, it was lamb, and if there was one culinary style that sickened him, it was curry. Thorne ate stolidly, not raising his eyes from his plate.

As they returned to the living room the old lawyer managed to drop behind. He whispered to Alice: “Is everything all right? Are you?”

“I'm a little scarish, I think,” she said quietly. “Mr. Thorne, please don't think me a child, but there's something so strange about—everything.… I wish now I hadn't come.”

“I know,” muttered Thorne. “And yet it was necessary, quite necessary. If there was any way-to spare you this, I should have taken it. But you obviously couldn't stay in that horrible hole next door—”

“Oh, no,” she shuddered.

“And there isn't a hotel for miles and miles. Miss Mayhew, has any of these people—”

“No, no. It's just that they're so strange to me. I suppose it's my imagination and this cold. Would you greatly mind if I went to bed? Tomorrow will be time enough to talk.”

Thorne patted her hand. She smiled gratefully, murmured an apology, kissed Dr. Reinach's cheek, and went upstairs with Mrs. Reinach again.

They had just settled themselves before the fire again and were lighting cigarettes when feet stamped somewhere at the rear of the house.

“Must be Nick,” wheezed the doctor. “Now where's
he
been?”

The gigantic young man appeared in the living-room archway, glowering. His boots were soggy with wet. He growled, “Hello,” in his surly manner and went to the fire to toast his big reddened hands. He paid no attention whatever to Thorne, although he glanced once, swiftly, at Ellery in passing.

“Where've you been, Nick? Go in and have your dinner.”

“I ate before you came.”

“What's been keeping you?”

“I've been hauling in firewood. Something you didn't think of doing.” Keith's tone was truculent, but, Ellery noticed that his hands were shaking. Damnably odd! His manner was noticeably not that of a servant, and yet he was apparently employed in a menial capacity. “It's snowing.”

“Snowing?”

They crowded to the front windows. The night was moonless and palpable, and big fat snowflakes were sliding down the panes.

“Ah, snow,” sighed Dr. Reinach; and for all the sigh there was something in his tone that made the nape of Ellery's neck prickle. “‘The whited air hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, and veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.'”

“You're quite the countryman, Doctor,” said Ellery.

“I like Nature in her more turbulent moods. Spring is for milksops. Winter brings out the fundamental iron.” The doctor slipped his arm about Keith's broad shoulders. “Smile, Nick. Isn't God in His heaven?”

Keith flung the arm off without replying.

“Oh, you haven't met Mr. Queen. Queen, this is Nick Keith. You know Mr. Thorne already.” Keith nodded shortly. “Come, come, my boy, buck up. You're too emotional, that's the trouble with you. Let's all have a drink. The disease of nervousness is infectious.”

Nerves! thought Ellery grimly. His nostrils were pinched, sniffing the little mysteries in the air. They tantalized him. Thorne was tied up in knots, as if he had cramps; the veins at his temples were pale blue swollen cords and there was sweat on his forehead. Above their heads the house was soundless. Dr. Reinach went to the sideboard and began hauling out bottles—gin, bitters, rye, vermouth. He busied himself mixing drinks, talking incessantly. There was a purr in his hoarse undertones, a vibration of pure excitement. What in Satan's name, thought Ellery in a sort of agony, was going on here?

Keith passed the cocktails around, and Ellery's eyes warned Thorne. Thorne nodded slightly; they had two drinks apiece and refused more. Keith drank doggedly, as if he were anxious to forget something.

“Now that's better,” said Dr. Reinach, settling his bulk into an easy chair. “With the women out of the way and a fire and liquor, life becomes almost endurable.”

“I'm afraid,” said Thorne, “that I shall prove an unpleasant influence, Doctor. I'm going to make it unendurable.”

Dr. Reinach blinked. “Well, now,” he said. “Well, now.” He pushed the brandy decanter carefully out of the way of his elbow and folded his pudgy paws on his stomach. His purple little eyes shone.

Thorne went to the fire and stood looking down at the flames, his back to them. “I'm here in Miss Mayhew's interests, Dr. Reinach,” he said, without turning. “In her interests alone. Sylvester Mayhew died last week very suddenly. Died while waiting to see the daughter whom he hadn't seen since his divorce from her mother almost twenty years ago.”

“Factually exact,” rumbled the doctor, without stirring.

Thorne spun about. “Dr. Reinach, you acted as Mayhew's physician for over a year before his death. What was the matter with him?”

“A variety of things. Nothing extraordinary. He died of cerebral hemorrhage.”

“So your certificate claimed.” The lawyer leaned forward. “I'm not entirely convinced,” he said slowly, “that your certificate told the truth.”

The doctor stared at him for an instant, then he slapped his bulging thigh. “Splendid!” he roared. “Splendid! a man after my own heart. Thorne, for all your desiccated exterior you have juicy potentialities.” He turned on Ellery, beaming. “You heard that, Mr. Queen? Your friend openly accuses me of murder. This is becoming quite exhilarating. So! Old Reinach's a fratricide. What do you think of that, Nick? Your patron accused of cold-blooded murder. Dear, dear.”