Ellery Queen's Crime Cruise Round the World

by Ellery Queen

  “But Phyl, I can’t. I don’t like Cutler.”

  “He seems to like you, taking you to lunch and making this offer. Where did you know him?”

  “We were at school together. He likes power over people, that’s all he thinks of. He was an awful bully. When we were at school he called me a boiler.”

  “A what? Oh, I see, a joke on your name. I don’t see there’s much harm in that.”

  “It wasn’t a joke. It was to show his—his contempt. He made other people be contemptuous too. And he still says it—when we met he said it’s the boiler.”

  “It sounds a bit childish to me. You’re not a child now, Harold.”

  “You don’t understand,” he cried out in despair. “You just don’t understand.”

  “I’ll tell you what I do understand,” she said. Her small pretty face was distorted with anger. “We’ve been married eight years, and you’ve been in the same firm all the time. Same firm, same job, no promotion. Now you’re offered double the money. Do you know what that would mean? I could get some new clothes, we could have a washing machine, we might even be able to move out of this neighbourhood to somewhere really nice. And you just say no to it, like that. If you want me to stay you’d better change your mind.”

  She went out, slamming the door. When he went upstairs later he found the bedroom door locked. He slept in the spare room.

  Or at least he lay in bed there. He thought about Cutler, who had been a senior when he was a junior. Cutler was the leader of a group who called themselves The Razors, and one day Harold found himself surrounded by them while on his way home. They pushed and pulled him along to the house of one boy whose parents were away. In the garden shed there they held a kind of trial in which they accused him of having squealed on a gang member who had asked Harold for the answers to some exam questions. Harold had given the answers, some of them had been wrong, and the master had spotted these identical wrong answers. Under questioning, Harold told the master what had happened.

  He tried to explain that this was not squealing, but the gang remained unimpressed. Suggestions about what should be done to him varied from cutting off all his hair to holding him face down in a lavatory bowl. Somebody said that Boyle should be put in a big saucepan and boiled, which raised a laugh. Then Cutler intervened. He was big even then, a big red-faced boy, very sarcastic.

  “We don’t want to do anything. He’ll only go sniveling back to teacher. Let’s call him something. Call him the boiler.”

  Silence. Somebody said, “Don’t see he’ll mind.”

  “Oh, yes, he will.” Cutler came close to Harold, his big face sneering. “Because I’ll tell him what it means, and then he’ll remember every time he hears it. Now, you just repeat this after me, boiler.” Then Cutler recited the ritual of the boiler and Harold, after his hair had been pulled and his arm twisted until he thought it would break, repeated it.

  He remembered the ritual. It began: I am a boiler. A boiler is a mean little sneak. He can’t tie his own shoelaces. A boiler fails in everything he tries. A boiler stinks. I am a boiler.

  Then they let him go, and he ran home. But that was the beginning of it, not the end. Cutler and his gang never called him anything else. They clamped their fingers to their noses when he drew near and said, “Watch out, here’s the boiler, pooh, what a stink.”

  Other boys caught on and did the same. He became a joke, an outcast. His work suffered, he got a bad end-of-term report. His father had died when he was five, so it was his beloved mother who asked him whether something was wrong. He burst into tears. She said that he must try harder next term, and he shook his head.

  “It’s no good, I can’t. I can’t do it, I’m a boiler.”

  “A boiler? What do you mean?”

  “A boiler, it means I’m no good, can’t do anything right. It’s what they call me.”

  “Who calls you that?”

  He told her. She insisted on going up to school and seeing the headmaster, although he implored her not to, and afterward of course things were worse than ever. The head had said that he would see what could be done, but that boys would be boys and Harold was perhaps oversensitive. Now the gang pretended to burst into tears whenever they saw him, and said poor little boiler should run home to mummy.

  And he often did run home from school to mummy. He was not ashamed to remember that he had loved his mother more than anybody else in the world, and that his love had been returned. She was a highly emotional woman, and so nervous that she kept a tiny pearl-handled revolver beside her bed. Harold had lived with her until she died. She left him all she had, which was a little money in gilt-edged stocks, some old fashioned jewelry, and the revolver. He sold the stocks and the jewelry, and kept the revolver in a bureau which he used as a writing desk.

  It was more than 20 years ago that Cutler had christened him boiler, but the memory remained painful. And now Phyllis wanted him to work with the man. Of course she couldn’t know what the word meant, how could anybody know? He saw that in a way Phyllis was right. She had been only 22, ten years younger than Harold, when they married after his mother’s death. It was true that he had expected promotion, he should have changed jobs, it would be wonderful to have more money. You mustn’t be a boiler all your life, he said to himself. Cutler was being friendly when he offered him the job.

  And he couldn’t bear to be on bad terms with Phyl, or to think that she might leave him. There had been an awful time, four years ago, when he had discovered that she was carrying on an affair with another man, some salesman who had called at the door to sell a line of household brooms and brushes. He had come home early one day and found them together. Phyl was shamefaced but defiant, saying that if he only took her out a bit more it wouldn’t have happened. Was it the fact that the salesman was a man of her own age, he asked. She shook her head, but said that it might help if Harold didn’t behave like an old man of 60.

  In the morning he told Phyl that he had thought it over, and changed his mind. She said that he would have been crazy not to take the job. Later that day he telephoned Cutler.

  To his surprise he did not find the new job disagreeable. It was more varied than his old work, and more interesting. He checked everything carefully, as he had always done, and soon unearthed evidence showing that one of the foremen was working with a sales manager to inflate the cost of jobs by putting in false invoices billed to a non-existent firm. Both men were sacked immediately.

  He saw Cutler on most days. Harold’s office overlooked the entrance courtyard, so that if he looked out of the window he could see Cutler’s distinctive gold-and-silver-colored Rolls-Royce draw up. A smart young chauffeur opened the door and the great man stepped out, often with a cigar in his mouth, and nodded to the chauffeur who then took the car round to the parking lot. Cutler came in around ten thirty, and often invaded Harold’s office after lunch, smelling of drink, his face very red. He was delighted by the discovery of the invoice fraud, and clapped Harold on the back.

  “Well done, my old boiler. It was a stroke of inspiration asking you to come here. Hasn’t worked out too badly for you either, has it?” Harold agreed. He talked as little as possible to his employer. One day Cutler complained of this.

  “Damn it, man, anybody would think we didn’t know each other. Just because I use a Rolls and have young Billy Meech drive me in here every morning doesn’t mean I’m stand-offish. You know why I do it? The Rolls is good publicity, the best you can have, and I get driven in every morning because it saves time. I work in the car dictating letters and so forth. I drive myself most of the time though—Meech has got a cushy job and he knows it. But don’t think I forget old friends. I tell you what, you and your wife must come out and have dinner one night. And we’ll use the Rolls.”

  Harold protested, but a few days later a letter came, signed “Blanche Cutler,” saying that Jack was delighted that an old friendship had been renewed, and suggesting a dinner date. Phyllis could hardly contain her pleasure, and was bo
th astonished and furious when Harold said they shouldn’t go, they would be like poor relations.

  “What are you talking about? He’s your old friend, isn’t he? And he’s been decent to you, giving you a job. If he’s not snobby, I don’t see why you should be.”

  “I told you I don’t like him. We’re not friends.”

  She glared at him. “You’re jealous, that’s all. You’re a failure yourself, and you can’t bear anybody else to be a success.”

  In the end, of course, they went.

  Cutler and Harold left the office in the Rolls, driven by Meech, who was in his middle twenties, and they collected Phyllis on the way. She had bought a dress for the occasion, and Harold could see that she was taking everything in greedily—the way Meech sprang out to open the door, the luxurious interior of the Rolls, the cocktail cabinet from which Cutler poured drinks, the silent smoothness with which they traveled. Cutler paid what Harold thought were ridiculous compliments on Phyllis’ dress and appearance, saying that Harold had kept his beautiful young wife a secret.

  “You’re a lucky man, my old boiler.”

  “Harold said that was what you called him. It seems a silly name.”

  “Just a reminder of schooldays,” Cutler said easily, and Harold hated him.

  The Cutlers lived in a big red-brick house in the outer suburbs, with a garden of more than an acre and a swimming pool. Blanche was a fine imposing woman, with a nose that seemed permanently raised in the air. Another couple came to dinner, the man big and loud-voiced like Cutler, his wife a small woman loaded down with what were presumably real pearls and diamonds. The man was some sort of stockbroker, and there was a good deal of conversation about the state of the market.

  Dinner was served by a maid in cap and apron, and was full of foods covered with rich sauces which Harold knew would play havoc with his digestion. There was a lot of wine, and he saw with dismay that Phyllis’ glass was being refilled frequently.

  “You and Jack were great friends at school, he tells me,” Blanche Cutler said, nose in air. What could Harold do but agree? “He says that now you are his right-hand man. I do think it is so nice when old friendships are continued in later life.”

  He muttered something, and then was horrified to hear the word boiler spoken by Phyllis.

  “What’s that?” the stockbroker asked, cupping hand to ear. Phyllis giggled. She was a little drunk.

  “Do you know what they used to call Harold at school? A boiler. What does it mean, Jack, you must tell us what it means.”

  “It was just a nickname.” Cutler seemed embarrassed. “Because his name was Boyle, you see.”

  “I know you’re hiding something from me.” Phyllis tapped Cutler flirtatiously on the arm. “Was it because he looks like a tough old boiling fowl, very tasteless? Because he does. I think it’s a very good name for him, a boiler.”

  Blanche elevated her nose a little higher and said that they would have coffee in the drawing room.

  Meech drove them home in the Rolls, and gave Phyllis his arm when they got out. She clung to it, swaying a little as they moved toward the front door. Indoors, she collapsed on the sofa and said, “What a lovely lovely evening.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I liked Jack. Your friend Jack. He’s such good company. Such good company.”

  “He’s not my friend, he’s my employer.”

  “Such an attractive man, very sexy.”

  He remembered the salesman. “I thought you only liked younger men. Cutler’s older than I am.”

  She looked at him with a slightly glazed eye. “Dance with me.”

  “We haven’t got any music.”

  “Come on, doesn’t matter.” She pulled him to his feet and they stumbled through a few steps.

  “You’re drunk.” He half pushed her away and she fell to the floor. She lay there staring up at him.

  “You damn—you pushed me over.”

  “I’m sorry, Phyl. Come to bed.”

  “You know what you are? You’re a boiler. It’s a good name for you.”

  “Phyl. Please.”

  “I married a boiler,” she said, and passed out. He had to carry her up to bed.

  In the morning she did not get up as usual to make his breakfast; in the evening she said sullenly that there was no point in talking anymore. Harold was just a clerk and would never be anything else, didn’t want to be anything else.

  After lunch on the next day Cutler came into Harold’s office and said he hoped they had both enjoyed the evening. For once he was not at ease, and at last came out with what seemed to be on his mind.

  “I’m glad we got together again, for old times’ sake. But look here, I’m afraid Phyl got hold of the wrong end of the stick. About that nickname.”

  “Boiler.”

  “Yes. Of course it was only meant affectionately. Just a play on your name.” Did Cutler really believe that, could he possibly believe it? His red shining face looked earnest enough. “But people can get the wrong impression as Phyl did. Better drop it. So, no more boiler. From now on it’s Jack and Harold, agreed?”

  He said that he agreed. Cutler clapped him on the shoulder, and said that he was late for an appointment on the golf course. He winked as he said that you could do a lot of business between the first and the eighteenth holes. Five minutes later Harold saw him driving away at the wheel of the Rolls-Royce, a big cigar in his mouth.

  In the next days Cutler was away from the office a good deal, and came into Harold’s room rarely. At home Phyllis spoke to him only when she could not avoid it. At night they lay like statues side by side. He reflected that, although they had more money, it had not made them happier.

  Ten days after the dinner party it happened.

  Harold went that day to the vegetarian restaurant across the park. Something in his nut steak must have disagreed with him, however, because by mid-afternoon he was racked by violent stomach pains. He bore them for half an hour and then decided to go home.

  The bus took him to the High Road, near his street. He turned the corner into it, walked a few steps, and then stopped, unbelieving.

  His house was a hundred yards down the street. And there, drawn up outside it, was Cutler’s gold-and-silver Rolls.

  He could not have said how long he stood there staring, as though by looking he might make the car disappear. Then he turned away, walked to the Post Office in the High Road, entered a telephone box and dialed his own number.

  The telephone rang and rang. On the wooden framework of the box somebody had written “Peter loves Vi.” He rubbed a finger over the words, trying to erase them.

  At last Phyllis answered. She sounded breathless.

  “You’ve been a long time.”

  “I was in the garden hanging out washing, didn’t hear you. You sound funny. What’s the matter?”

  He said that he felt ill and was coming home, was leaving the office now.

  She said sharply, “But you’re in a call box, I distinctly heard the pips.”

  He explained that he had suddenly felt faint and had been near a pay telephone in the entrance hall.

  “So you’ll be back in half an hour.” He detected relief in her voice.

  During that half hour he walked about; he could not afterward have said in what streets, except that he could not bear to approach his own. He could not have borne to see Cutler driving away, a satisfied leer on his face at having once again shown the boiler who was master. Through his head there rang, over and over, Phyllis’ words such an attractive man, very sexy, words that now seemed repeated in the sound of his own footsteps.

  When he got home Phyllis exclaimed at sight of him, and said that he did look ill. She asked what he had eaten at lunch, and said that he had better lie down.

  In the bedroom he caught the lingering aroma of cigar smoke, even though the window was open. He threw up in the lavatory and then said to Phyllis that he would stay in the spare room. She made no objection. During the eve
ning she was unusually solicitous, coming up three times to ask whether there was something he would like, taking his temperature, and putting a hand on his forehead. The touch was loathsome to him.

  He stayed in the spare room. In the morning he dressed and shaved, but ate no breakfast. She expressed concern.

  “You look pale. If you feel ill come home, but don’t forget to call first just in case I might be out.”

  So, he thought, Cutler was coming again that day. The pearl-handled revolver, small as a toy, nestled in his pocket when he left. He had never fired it.

  He spent the morning looking out of his window, but Cutler did not appear. He arrived soon after lunch, brought by Meech. He did not come to Harold’s office.

  Half an hour passed. Harold took out the revolver and balanced it in his hand. Would it fire properly, would he be able to shoot straight?

  He felt calm, but his hand trembled.

  He took the lift up to the top floor and opened the door of Cutler’s office without knocking. Cutler was talking to a recording machine, which he switched off.

  “Why the hell don’t you knock?” Then he said more genially, “Oh, it’s you, my old—Harold. What can I do for you?”

  Harold took out the little revolver. Cutler looked astonished, but not frightened. He asked what Harold thought he was doing.

  Harold did not reply. Across the desk the boiler faced the man who had ruined his life. The revolver went crack crack. Blue smoke curled up from it. Cutler continued to stare at him in astonishment, and Harold thought that he had failed in this as he had failed in so many things, that even from a few feet he had missed. Then he saw the red spot in the middle of Cutler’s forehead, and the big man collapsed face down on his desk.

  Harold walked out of the room, took the lift, and left the building. He did not reply to the doorman, who asked whether he was feeling all right, he looked rather queer. He was going to give himself up to the police, but before doing so he must speak to Phyllis. He die-not know just what he wanted to say, but it was necessary to show her that he was not a boiler, that Cutler had not triumphed in the end.