by Ellery Queen
“Poor Lou Orloff, you mean,” Powell replied. “He spent a lifetime building up his house of cards. And then…”
“Then,” Bennett said, “he wound up in a pauper’s grave in Bonaparte, Louisiana, as John Doe.”
The three men strolled down the hall and into an empty courtroom.
They sat down. The hearing into Orloff’s affairs would reconvene in half an hour.
“Orloff’s death,” James said, “was the direct result of his own greed and suspicion. Orloff was injured in that crash, but he was a strong and fearless man. He’d absorbed a number of bullets, once, and survived to win a medal. So he put the safety of his strongbox firsts and his own welfare second. When he crawled out of that wrecked car and saw that Prentiss was dead, Orloff decided to hide his strongbox then and there. He wasn’t about to let any stranger he might meet in the next few hours know about that strongbox—especially policemen who might turn up at any time to investigate the accident. And even if he persuaded someone, as he ultimately persuaded Ira Wilson, to drive him to the sanitarium in Bonaparte, he feared he might become unconscious during the ride, and the strongbox might be stolen. He was also afraid of being hospitalized in that sanitarium, perhaps anesthetized for hours or days at a time, with the strongbox lying around for anyone to pick up.”
“As I understand it,” Powell said, “Orloff pried a hubcap off the rear wheel of the wrecked car and used that as a digging tool to bury the strongbox on the Wilson farm.”
“That’s right,” Bennett said. “Then, the strongbox taken care of, he finally gave some consideration to himself. He stumbled to Wilson’s house and bribed Wilson to drive him to Bonaparte, to the sanitarium, where he knew Bailey could arrange to keep his admittance a secret, since Bailey owned the place. But the delay in seeking medical attention, plus his exertions in burying his strongbox, proved fatal. According to the doctor at the sanitarium, who talked readily enough when Federal authorities questioned him, Orloff died less than twelve hours later.”
“He died,” James added, “without disclosing the spot where he’d buried the box. Orloff did tell Bailey it was somewhere on the farm, though, and ordered Bailey to buy the farm and get Wilson off the property—to forestall Wilson’s digging it up by accident. But Orloff had faith, to the end, that he’d recover from his injuries and dig up that strongbox himself.”
“So Bailey,” Bennett said, “posed as a man from Fort Smith and bought the farm. He also conceived the impersonation ‘red herring’—the false Orloff—when the real Orloff died. He realized that unless another Orloff turned up somewhere, the authorities would start tracing Orloff’s movements from New York. They might learn about the accident in Arkansas, might start digging up the Wilson farm, too. Bailey conferred with Orloff’s secretary. Both knew about the actor. Herb Vann. Bailey paid the secretary to find Vann and arranged for him to assume Orloff’s identity in Rio for a few months. The villa in Rio had already been purchased—the secretary had Orloff’s passport so everything was set. All that was necessary was for Vann to show up in Rio, with the secretary at his elbow to guide him over the rough spots.”
“The purpose of the deception,” James said, “was to give Bailey enough time to buy the farm, get Wilson moved off, and start digging for the strongbox on his own. That’s how he was spending his time when Bennett showed up to investigate the accident—he was digging. It was a job he wanted to do alone. Like Orloff, he didn’t trust anyone to help him. Because the strongbox now meant an awful lot to E. G. Bailey—as much as it had meant to Lou Orloff, when Orloff was alive. The diamonds inside were only a minor consideration. The big thing was, if Bailey could find and destroy Orloff’s ledger, he could then transfer all that money from Orloff’s dummy accounts into dummy accounts of his own, without fear that the ledger would ever turn up to trap him—a neat little gain of more than six million dollars, and no taxes. No wonder he was willing to spend a little money to maintain Vann as the false Orloff.”
“As soon as we realized Gordon and Bailey were the same man,” Bennett added, “the whole pattern became clear. Why else would Bailey buy the Wilson farm and spend his time digging alone, except to uncover that strongbox? And if Orloff had buried the box and after five weeks hadn’t returned to dig it up himself, it almost certainly meant Orloff was unable to return, that he had probably died in the sanitarium.”
Powell smiled. “It was nice of Bailey to find the box so quickly, while you two and those Federal marshals were hiding nearby. Bailey might have spent weeks poking around before he uncovered it.”
“Well,” James grinned, “we sort of induced its quick disco very, Sam. We staked out the farm that morning because we knew Bailey was going to find the box. He’d been searching with a shovel before. But when I met him back in Bonaparte, as the president of the James Sales Company, I used a little creative salesmanship on Mr. E. G. Bailey. I even made a twelve-dollar profit on the deal, Ted’s expenses going to New Orleans and back for this item notwithstanding. I sold Bailey the very thing he needed most—a portable metal detector.”
Barry Perowne
The Raffles Bombshell
Another adventure of Mr. A. J. Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman and Cricketer…Raffles is the most famous Gentleman Burglar in the annals of English crime-writing—his name is perhaps better known around the world than even that of his French peer, Arsene Lupin, and no early American thief or con man—not Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford or The Gray Seal or Jimmy Valentine or Jeff Peters or The Phantom Crook or the Infallible Godahl—has reached the pinnacle of international fame to stand beside Raffles and Lupin. In this period piece about Raffles, faithful in every detail to its turn-of-the-century tone and background, the great A. J. adds an unusual crime (unusual for him) to his usual second-story work—and adds it with his customary style, which is an appealing kind of English elan.
Criminal: A. J. RAFFLES
It so happened that A. J. Raffles was batting when the open carriage with the four portly gentlemen in it entered Lord’s Cricket Ground.
A sibilance of whispers ran around the stands, gay with parasols, blazers, and boaters in the heat-shimmer, and from where I was sittings on a bench on the pavilion terrace, I heard some woman behind me ask:
“Who are they?”
“The one with the beard and the white Homburg hat,” a man’s voice answered, “is the King.”
“Oh, how exciting! Who’s that sitting beside him?”
“That’s John L. Sullivan, the great prize-fighter.”
“Fancy the King going about with prize-fighters!”
“There’s only one John L. Sullivan, my dear,” the man said tolerantly. “He’s in London on a visits and the King’s very taken with him. I expect he wants to show Mr. Sullivan something of our summer game. Americans don’t play it, you know.”
“How strange of them! Oh, look, there’s a different flag going up the flagstaff!”
The carriage, with its two tophatted coachmen on the box, and its two fine black horses arching their proud necks against the bearing-reins, was standing now just to the right of the pavilion terrace, in a good position to watch the game.
As the Royal Standard shimmered red-and-gold at the summit of the flagstaff, the crowd rose to its feet with a rustle, and the white-flannelled players in their various positions on the great circle of emerald turf faced the carriage and doffed their cricket caps.
The interruption was brief. King Edward VII was a great sportsman, his visit was informal, and with a genial gesture he intimated that play should be resumed.
“There seem to be a lot of policemen about, all of a sudden,” said the woman sitting behind me.
“When the King appears, the bobbies pop up everywhere,” explained her companion. “Oh, good shot! Well hit, sir!”
Raffles had struck a ball from Kortright, the fastest bowler in the world, firmly to the boundary.
“The King’s talking to Mr. Sullivan about something,” said the chatterbox.
“He�
��s probably explaining to Mr. Sullivan the technique of that shot A. J. Raffles just made.”
“They’re lighting cigars,” said the chatterbox. “Mr. Sullivan has a diamond ring and stickpin.”
“My dear, I beg you,” said her companion, “stop staring at the royal carriage. It’s simply not done.”
“Those poor horses! Why don’t the coachmen put nosebags on them to munch in?”
“Evidently the King doesn’t intend to stay long—probably just till the Tea Interval, which is due at four o’clock. Now, please, do pay attention to the game.”
It was at an interesting stage. Raffles had scored 73, so there was a good chance of his reaching his hundred by teatime. The sun blazed down. Except for the sound of bat meeting ball, and an occasional ripple of handclapping, an increasingly tense hush brooded over the ground as the hands of the pavilion clock crept toward the hour of four.
Suddenly, just as the burly Kortright was making his run up to the wicket to launch one of his thunderbolts at Raffles, a wild scream pierced the silence. Kortright almost fell. Recovering himself, he glared off to his left, towards the stand on the side opposite the royal carriage.
“Oh!” gasped the woman behind me. “Whatever’s happening?”
From a swirling of the crowd in the stand over there, I saw a lithe, lightly-built figure break free, vault the low rail, and run out onto the turf. The interloper wore white flannel trousers and a pink blazer. I glimpsed dark glasses under the floppy brim of a white linen hat, but it was the globular object in the interloper’s hand which wrenched a concerted gasp of horror from the crowd.
“Oh, my God!” muttered a man sitting beside me. “A nihilist!”
From the globular object, considerably larger than a cricket ball, dangled a length of fuse from which, as the interloper hurled the object, overarm, high through the air toward the wicket, trailed a thin feather of smoke.
The bomb landed in midwicket, between the two batsmen. The interloper came running on towards the King’s carriage. Bobbies raced out to head the interloper off. Seeing them coming, the interloper whipped off the floppy linen hat and dark glasses. Long hair, of a honey colour in the sunshine, rippled down over the interloper’s shoulders as, flinging up her hands, she cried out, “Your Majesty—”
Her further words were lost to me, for the bobbies were on her. Crowd and players alike were struck to immobility—all save one. Raffles, his bat raised, was running toward the bomb, which lay with its fuse smoking and rapidly sputtering on the turf.
“Leave it, Raffles!” I was on my feet, shouting at him, in panic. “Don’t touch it! Stand back!”
But Raffles slammed down his bat on the fuse. It must have been quickmatch, for it still sputtered fiercely. Raffles threw aside his bat, snatched up the bomb with one batting-gloved hand, jerked the fuse right out of it with the other.
Dropping the little that remained of the fuse. Raffles trod it out with his nailed cricket boot, and, seeing a bobby approaching at the double, lobbed the now harmless bomb to him as casually as if it had been a cricket ball.
A collective sigh of relief went up from the crowd.
“What was she shouting about?” asked the chatterbox behind me, as a group of bobbies hustled the bomb-thrower, quite a young woman, away to some waiting Black Maria. “It sounded like ‘Women of England’ and ‘concubinage.’ What’s concubinage?”
“It’s a form of—uh—subjugation,” replied the chatterbox’s escort, sounding embarrassed. “By God, though, that was quick thinking by Raffles—a jolly good show! Listen to the people clapping for him!”
“There’s a gentleman from the King’s carriage gone over to speak to him,” said the chatterbox. “Oh, look, the gentleman’s taking him to meet the King! D’you think Mr. Raffles will be knighted or something?”
“Hardly that,” replied her escort. “Still, congratulations are in order—though, of course. Raffles may merely have been thinking that he didn’t want a hole blown in the turf before he’d scored his hundred.”
“Sir,” I said, turning my head to look the fellow in the eye, “as a personal friend of A. J. Raffles, I resent that remark. No such thought would have entered his head. His action was instinctive—and typical of him.”
“I beg your pardon,” the young fellow said, with a flush. “I confess the remark was unwarranted. I gladly withdraw it. Uh, come, Daisy dear, I think perhaps we’d better go to tea now.”
The couple sidled off, the fellow shamefaced, his chatterbox companion looking back at me curiously.
I glanced across at the royal carriage. Raffles, standing beside it, still wearing his batting-pads, doffed his cap as the King shook hands with him and introduced him to John L. Sullivan. Knowing Raffles as I did, I knew he would not fail to note, as he shook hands with the great pugilist, Mr. Sullivan’s diamond ring and stickpin; but I also knew that, King Edward himself having made the introduction, Mr. Sullivan’s belongings would remain taboo as far as Raffles was concerned.
A hand gripped my arm. It was the man who had been sitting beside me.
“Did I hear you say, sir,” he asked, “that you’re a personal friend of A. J. Raffles?”
“I am indeed, sir.”
“In that case, I should appreciate it if you would introduce me to him. I see that His Majesty’s carriage is departing and the Tea Interval is now upon us. If you could arrange for me to meet Mr. Raffles during the interval, I should be most grateful. I have a proposal to make to him.”
Though he had been sitting beside me all afternoon, I had not until now taken much note of the man. Impeccably dressed in grey cutaway and grey topper, he was tall and thin, with a sallow, haughty face and a ribboned monocle.
“A proposal?” I said cautiously.
“I am Lord Pollexfen, of the Pollexfen Press. Sir, just listen to this crowd!”
As umpires and players were coming to the pavilion, which Raffles already had entered by a side door, the crowd in the stands was chanting, to rhythmic handclaps, “We—want—A. J. Raffles! We—want—A. J. Raffles!”
“You are hearing, sir,” said Lord Pollexfen, “the Voice of Britain! Within an hour, newsboys will be crying on the London streets the name of A. J. Raffles—a name already well-known as standing for all that is finest in English sporting life. To-morrow he will be the subject of laudatory editorials in every newspaper in the land. For some time I’ve been seeking a name for a project I have in mind. Sir, I have found that name!”
His monocle glittered compellingly at me.
“The iron is hot,” said Lord Pollexfen. “Will you please tell your friend Mr. Raffles that I should like to discuss with him immediately the launching of a magazine, a monthly magazine of the highest class—a magazine, edited by himself, to be called A. J. Raffles’ Magazine of Sport.”
To cricketers the world over, the Long Room at Lord’s is little short of a shrine. And it was in this historic chamber, with the sunshine from its open windows mellow on panelled walls and priceless trophies, that the foundations of Raffles’ Magazine were laid.
He himself determined my own role in the project. Keen of face, his dark hair crisp, his blazer and muffler sporting the colours of the noted I Zingari Club, he put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’d like to point out, Lord Pollexfen,” he said, “that my friend here, Bunny Manders, is himself a skilful journalist. While I’m prepared to figure as Editor of the proposed magazine, my sporting engagements occupy most of my time. I should need the practical conduct of the magazine, under my general guidance as regards policy, to be in capable hands—and I can think of no more capable Assistant Editor than Bunny Manders here. How d’you feel about that, Bunny?”
It was true that, on Raffles’ advice, I dabbled in freelance journalism as a cover for the more lucrative activities in which I was his confederate.
“I shall be happy to cooperate,” I said.
To this, Lord Pollexfen made no objection, and he proceeded to suggest that an honorarium for
Raffles would be appropriate, and for my own services an emolument in the nature of a salary. Though delicately enough phrased, the actual sums mentioned by the Press baron were nothing to write home about, but Raffles accepted them with casual inconsequence.
When the peer had gone off to arrange about office space and staff for us in the Pollexfen Press Building in Covent Garden I said that I felt we might have made a better bargain.
“Why strain at sprats, Bunny,” Raffles said, “when there may be mackerel in the offing?”
“You have some idea. Raffles?”
“That depends. Bunny.”
“On what?”
“On the girl who threw the bomb. You heard what she was shouting about. It may have possibilities.” Raffles’ grey eyes danced as he offered me a Sullivan from his cigarette-case. “She’ll be up in front of the magistrate at Marlborough Street tomorrow morning. We’ll be there.”
In addition to her honey-coloured hair, the girl in the dock at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court next morning proved to have other attractions. She had spent the night in a cell, but evidently someone, possibly her solicitor, had wisely brought her more appropriate attire in which to appear before the magistrate than the trousers she had worn at Lord’s.
Her name was Mirabel Renny, and she was a fine figure of a girl, standing there in the dock, though her proud bearing and defiant expression were at variance with the moving plea which her solicitor, quite a young man, made on her behalf.
“My client, Your Honour,” he said, “as the only girl in a family dominated by her father and five large, athletic brothers, naturally occupied a subordinate place. As Your Honour is doubtless aware, pernicious literature about the social and political status of the female sex has been filtering into this country from the United States. Some of it chanced to fall into the hands of my client, who, in her girlish simplicity, was so unduly moved by it as to leave her country home and come to London. Here she lodged at a Ladies’ Hostel in Fulham, where she fell in with some elder persons of her sex who likewise had been infected by these imported fallacies.”