Ellery Queen's Eyewitnesses

by Ellery Queen

  “Where did soldiers find drugs?” Jericho asked.

  “Black market operated by other soldiers with gold bars on their collars. They got rich on it. That is the way of high command. Like everywhere else, the powerful feed off the helpless. Well—in an air raid Fred and I managed to rescue some high brass. We were wounded, decorated together, and honorably discharged together.

  “Back home I had a job—here, selling chop suey. Fred could find nothing. He was still fighting drugs. I spent every free moment I had trying to help him. It is thought that for a man to love a man is evil, or sick. But I loved Fred. I would have given anything on earth to help him with his trouble—drugs. We spent all our free time away from sources, like the day you saw us on the beach. And then—then my father chose to send me on a business trip to San Francisco. I refused. Fred was going through a bad spell.

  “But my father was made of iron. I could not help Fred without my job here. So I had to go. I made arrangements to call Fred on the telephone every day at a certain time. On the second day he didn’t answer. I knew! I knew!”

  Sung brought his fist down on the table. “I had to stay another few days. Fred never answered the phone. When I got back here it was all over. He had killed a policewoman who had been posing as a supplier.”

  Sung twisted, as if in pain, in his chair. “That is how we do things in this Land of the Free, Mr. Jericho. The police, the F.B.I., infiltrate criminal groups, invite the helpless into their webs, urge them to commit a crime, and when they do—in this case the possession of drugs—they throw them in the slammer.”

  “It was more than possession of drugs, Sung. He killed a policewoman,” Jericho said.

  “Only after she had tricked him! I heard of a highly recommended lawyer, a man named Goldsteyn. I persuaded Fred to hire him. Goldsteyn thought he had a chance to save Fred.”

  “You were the person who paid Goldsteyn’s fee?”

  “Yes. Goldsteyn’s argument in court was a sound one. Fred was a sick man. The police had preyed on his sickness to drive him to kill, something he would never have done had he been himself. Goldsteyn made the point that Fred was a man who needed help, not a murderer who deserved punishment. The prosecutor didn’t see it that way, the jury didn’t see it that way, the judge threw the book at him. And Fred—poor Fred made a rope out of a bedsheet and hanged himself on his birthday! These people, without understanding, without compassion, had killed him.”

  “And so you went after them one by one?”

  “Yes. One by one.”

  “But your father?”

  Sung moistened pale lips. “He sent me to San Francisco against my will. If I had not been away I could have prevented what happened to Fred. I would have been with him, helping to fight his battle.”

  Jericho was speechless.

  Sung’s smile looked pasted on his face. “So here we are, Mr. Jericho. If you kill me you will never get out of this room alive. If you don’t kill me—you will never get out of this room alive.”

  The room was so still that Jericho thought he could hear a faucet dripping in the kitchen. And then there was a roar of sound. Men came charging into the room through a door. The circle of waiters was broken. There was a gunshot.

  Across the table from Jericho, Sung had suddenly risen. From his sleeve, as if by magic, appeared a glittering knife. He lunged at Jericho.

  The artist dodged and fired, at a knee, not the stomach. Sung screamed and fell across the table.

  “You damn fool!” Kreevich said. He was standing over Jericho, who had flattened himself on the floor. “Why couldn’t you let us handle it?”

  Jericho fought an absurd urge to laugh hysterically as he struggled to his feet. “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “I got a report on Miller’s war record. He and Kim Sung were decorated together. That tied it all up. It took hours to get a judge to sign a search warrant. The police have to work by the book. I tried to find you, you idiot, and I realized you must have remembered the face of the upside-down man and were playing the role of a silly dragon killer by yourself.”

  The laughter came. “Do you suppose a man can get himself a drink in this place?” Jericho asked.

  Conrad S. Smith

  Steffi Duna, I Love You!

  None of us felt there was anything particularly sinister about Simon Atherton’s nephew when we first met him. What could be sinister about a tall blondish youth, overly handsome—the kind of lad who went out of style with Troy Donahue?

  “Rick’s come out here to break into pictures,” Simon explained to us.

  “Although I’ll start in television if I have to,” Rick added with a lofty little smile.

  Laughable, maybe. An egotistical kid who had a lot to learn. But hardly sinister. Yet soon after, the monthly invitations from Simon stopped coming and the ominous wall went up around him. He couldn’t telephone or write to any of the five of us, and our calls and letters never got through to him.

  If only we’d all tracked each other down and shared our suspicions sooner! But we had this slightly screwball relationship: Simon was the hub of our kinky little wheel, he did all the party-giving at his lush place in the Hollywood hills; the rest of us were like five spokes, all in phone contact with him but not with each other. And after each party we’d all scatter off to our separate tacky lives for another whole month.

  In Los Angeles, I do mean scatter.

  My little bachelor dump was in Venice. The Nortons lived with her folks 30 miles inland in El Monte. Adam Roth camped, as he put it, way down in Long Beach, near his cubbyhole shop aboard the Queen Mary. And as for Ruth Galloway—well, who knows where a fat lonely soul like Ruth would live?

  The point is simply this: fond as we all were of each other once a month, with our mutual and very special interest as the magnet, we’d never got around to exchanging telephone numbers or addresses—and that’s what delayed things so badly. We all feel terrible about that now. But I’m getting ahead of myself. . .

  It all began two years ago when the six of us, then strangers, chanced to enroll in an evening adult course at UCLA. “The Development of Films from 1930 to 1960” was the juicy bait, and every old-movie buff in Southern California was lured out of his cage to devour it.

  During the coffee break one night a funny little man with questionably dark hair and a sunlamped face started chatting cozily as though we were all old friends. Adam Roth had that rare knack of melding a mismatched bunch regardless of age or sex. In Adam’s case you weren’t certain about either. But who cared? What did matter was the crinkly laughter in his eyes. He splashed his small talk with giddy reminiscences.

  “I was one of those mad autograph creatures who haunted all the premieres,” he bubbled. “The Phantom of Grauman’s Chinese! And let me tell you, I screamed when Randolph Scott stalked down that red carpet and whacked Louella on her behind! That was at Navy Blue and Gold in 1936.”

  Impulsively he narrowed his eyes. “Anyone know who played the girl in that?”

  Without a second’s hesitation the fat woman next to him said, “Florence Rice.”

  Adam squealed in ecstasy. “Now it’s your turn, Miss Trivia,” he challenged her.

  Ruth Galloway hesitated only a moment. Then: “Rosemary, Lola, and Priscilla Lane played three of the Four Daughters. Who played the fourth?”

  I flicked a bit of lint from my sleeve.

  “Gale Page,” I said.

  We thought Adam would go into orbit. That fifteen-minute recess flew by on the wings of Jane Frazee, Cora Sue Collins, and El Brendel. No doubt about it, we were all movie-trivia freaks, including the long-haired Nortons—and even the older, expensively dressed man who was so far out of our bracket. After a shy start he pitched in with delight.

  His specialty was obscure character actors: George Barbier, Henry Armetta, Franklin Pangborn, Grady Sutton. Now there’s a collection of stars for you!

  Simon Atherton was retired, it turned out, with a lot of free time to fill. From lat
er conversations I gathered that he was by nature a loner. All his hobbies were solitary—collecting fine porcelain and glassware, old playbills, dabbling at prize orchids. But once in a while he felt impelled to sample the real world outside his luxurious shell.

  After several weeks of our coffee-break mania we were ripe for his suggestion:

  “Why don’t we make an evening of this at my place? You must all come for dinner and a real game.”

  “Only if you invite Lona Andre and Dixie Dunbar too,” quipped Adam.

  Simon jotted down all our phone numbers, and so the next Friday evening found me chugging up a curved road lined with mansions. At the top, handsome iron gates opened into a courtyard fronting Simon’s Spanish palace. (“Ramon Navarro built it,” he confided.) I began to regret my scruffy Levis and desert boots. Three other shy little cars were there already, huddled far from the awesome Bentley and its license plate reading SIMON.

  Simon had cooked up a special welcome. “Hello, Douglas Dumbrille!” he beamed as he swung open the massive carved door. I tried to top him with, “Good evening, Etienne Girardot!” Chuckling happily, he led me into a cavernous hallway.

  I was relieved to see he had dressed casually too, though his tailormade jeans must have cost him sixty bucks compared to my ten-dollar swapmeet pair.

  We moved into the elegant warmth of what would have been the family room if Simon had had a family. The other misfits were trying to thaw out their awkwardness around a crackling fire. The awkwardness hung over all of us despite Simon’s disarming manner and attentive bartending. I saw that each of our crystal glasses had a star’s name etched on it. Mine said Anna May Wong. Ah, so.

  “Two drinks and then dinner,” Simon announced. “We want to stay sharp for The Game. Then at 11:30 we’ll catch Joan Crawford in Rain on the Late Show.”

  Thoughtfully, he’d sensed that having a servant around would inhibit us even more. So he gave his man the evening off after laying out a lavish buffet.

  Then, over our gold edged platters of smoked turkey, shrimp salad, and creamed asparagus tips (fresh and very out-of-season), we were finally as relaxed as though we were sipping our paper-cup coffee at recess.

  We learned that Edna and Bill Norton commuted to downtown office jobs (shedding their beads and denim in El Monte, I’m sure). But how their eyes glowed behind their granny glasses when they talked of their experimental film efforts! A two-reeler of theirs had just won a prize.

  Adam sighed. “I do hope you don’t wallow in all those dreary innovations? Hand-held cameras, crazy quick cuts—” He shuddered. “And really, you know, erotica is so depressing. That’s why I stopped going to new movies. I only look backward now!”

  His shop aboard the Queen offered old movie stills, posters, and fan magazines. He didn’t make a dime, I’m sure, but he was in his own personal heaven.

  Ruth was the most reticent that first night, but over the months I figured her out. During her teens she must have come to terms with her mirror and snailed inward, consoling herself with endless chocolates and movies. To her great credit, though, this lonely indulgence paid off. (The movies, not the chocolates.) She was now the invaluable right hand to a casting director with only one flaw—a terrible memory for names.

  The Game made the evening really whiz along. Simon gave a miniature gold Oscar to the winner, and I’m proud to say it shared my Volkswagen seat on the way home. I’d finally stumped everybody when we varied the game by playing it with initials.

  “S.D.—female star of the Thirties” was the only clue I gave. That drove them up the wall before they surrendered.

  Steffi Duna, I love you!

  Over the years the movies have given me a lot of blessed escape from a lot of deadly jobs. If I ever finally make it with my play-writing, maybe I’ll enjoy telling interviewers: “I supported myself during the Long Struggle by working as a messenger, mail clerk, plumber’s helper, truck driver. . .” But till then, forget it! That’s what I loved about our group. Nobody gave a damn what you did; all that mattered was what you knew.

  The happy times continued that way for well over a year. Whenever one of us feebly muttered something about passing around the hosting chores, Simon always showed the quality that’s so rare in a wealthy man, his great sensitivity. He’d hush us up with the kind excuse that his location was the most central. Actually, he knew we couldn’t afford it, none of us had the proverbial pot. (No, not that one, I mean the one of gold.)

  Simon’s gilded pot was the result of his Midas touch with investments. He’d begun with only the same modest inheritance as his brother. But his share multiplied dazzlingly compared to Richard’s repeated fiascos. Through the years he’d kept financing Richard in one “sure-fire” scheme after another, but by now (in their early fifties) Richard—with his carbon-copy son—was still plodding away at some grubby deal back east, while Simon—who’d never married—had long since moved to California. They rarely kept in touch any more.

  But suddenly one day Simon had to postpone our party. He was flying east for his brother’s funeral. Richard had died falling off a ladder from a second-story window.

  When he got back, Simon sprang the surprise on us—his nephew Rick. He must have answered one more plea for help by bringing the destitute boy along. Obviously they hadn’t had time to go shopping yet because Rick’s clothes were flashy and cheap-looking.

  I really began to dislike him as soon as he found out what Ruth did for a living. He switched on his full wattage, hopped to refill her glass, piled her plate with seconds and thirds (how could he hope to wangle a job out of her if he killed her?), and hung dewy-eyed on her every word. Ruth, bless her, was past the stage where she could believe such nonsense, so the sudden infatuation was one-sided.

  Things got much worse very quickly when we started to play The Game. Now, Movie Trivia is something you either go bananas over or you hate, depending a lot on what you bring to it. Rick came empty-handed. And his youth was no excuse—Edna and Bill were just a few years older. It’s simply that he had no interest in anything that didn’t bear directly on himself or his seedy ambitions.

  When it was his turn, he led us down a tiresome dead end by insisting that Jane Fonda had played Scarlett O’Hara.

  “Of course,” purred Adam. “And didn’t Tiny Tim make a divine Rhett Butler!”

  We’d all have been very relieved if Rick had gone upstairs, but he wasn’t about to leave Ruth’s side. Happily, he found a mirror facing his chair, but once in a while I caught him staring at us as if we were beings from another world. Which I guess we were.

  Simon tried to compensate for the stickiness by talking louder and laughing longer. But we all begged off earlier than usual, just as the Late Show started. As I got into my car I heard Rick’s voice whining through the night, “Migod, Uncle Simon, who the hell are Joan Leslie and Dennis Morgan?”

  Several of us were away for Thanksgiving, so the next party was our Christmas bash. Simon didn’t look at all well. His ruddy cheeks were pale and his eyes lacked their familiar twinkle. He seemed listless as he served our drinks. Thankfully, there was no sign or mention of Rick.

  Ruth drew me aside, though, to tell me what a laughing-stock he’d already made of himself in his two-month attack on Hollywood. Directors and agents all around town were chortling over the composite photo he’d sent out.

  “He spent a lot of Simon’s money having himself photographed in twelve different costumes,” she said. “They’re all on one composite: D’Artagnan, a motorcyclist, Louis XV, a Nazi stormtrooper, an astronaut—you name it.”

  She started to giggle.

  “But every pose is shot from exactly the same angle—to show Rick’s good side. And he’s flashing exactly the same inane grin. It looks like one of those paper-doll sets where kids lay a lot of different outfits over the same figure.”

  Her giggles were getting out of control.

  “And then across the top in big bold letters he printed: RICK ATHERTON, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACE
S!”

  Simon was approaching us, but then he paused and glanced toward the hall. He’d heard the descending footsteps before we had. His expression was a curious blank.

  Rick appeared in the archway. He was now sun-bronzed, and handsomer than ever in a magnificent leisure suit made of leather. He favored us with a barely civil nod.

  “A thousand and one faces,” I murmured to Ruth.

  Now another man joined him. He was somewhat older, about 30, but with the same general type of good looks, vacuous yet arrogant. He too wore an ensemble of shining leather. They stood there, creaking and redolent.

  Since they were obviously on their way out, Simon must have felt that introductions all around were futile. He merely said, “Everybody, this is Dr. Jordan.”

  We were honored with another brief nod for our scrapbook of memories. Then Rick said, “We won’t be back till very late, Uncle Simon. Don’t forget to take your pills.” And with that they rustled off.

  I bet Adam’s thoughts were X-rated at that moment. He broke the awkward silence.

  “‘Back’? Is kindly old Dr. Marcus Horsehide your resident physician now?”

  Simon managed a little smile. “He’s staying here with us—not because I need him though. He’s a friend of Rick’s from the east.”

  Edna looked worried. “But Rick mentioned pills. Simon, are you all right?”

  “Of course. Just a little digestion trouble. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

  But he didn’t look fine and we noticed later that he only toyed with his food.

  We were even more concerned the following month to find Simon propped up on the couch in his robe. He looked ill and he’d lost weight.

  “Self-service tonight.” He drifted an apologetic hand toward the bar. “And the boys left us a casserole in the oven.”

  It was hard to know which question to ask first. Bill Norton started.

  “Isn’t your man with you any more?”

  “No,” Simon murmured. “Rick told me he and Dr. Jordan caught Rogers padding the household accounts.” He shook his head sadly. “He’d been with me for twenty years.”