by Ellery Queen
"Horatio?" sighed Charley Paxton.
"None other."
"You won't get any more out of him than you got out of Louella. Ellery, we're wasting our time."
"I'm beginning to think so. Dad's been all through this, anyway, and he said he'd got exactly nowhere." They paused in the doorway, looking out across the gardens to the multi-colored cottage. "I must have been born under a very subtle curse. I live in hope always that some rationale can be applied to even the most haphazard human set-up. This time I think I'm licked .. . Voici Horatio."
The burly figure of Horatio Potts appeared from behind the little house, carrying a long ladder, his red bristles a halo in the sun. He wore filthy ducks tied about his joggled paunch with a piece of frayed rope, and tattered sandals on his broad feet. Perspiration stained his blouse darkly.
"What the devil's he doing?"
"Watch."
Horatio padded to the nearest tree, a patriarchal sycamore, and set the ladder against the trunk. Then he began to climb, the ladder protesting clearly all the way across the garden. He disappeared among some lower branches, his fat calves struggling upward, disembodied.
The two men waited, wondering.
Suddenly the legs began to dangle; Horatio appeared again, blowing in triumph. One hand firmly clasped the crosspiece of a kite. Carefully the fat man descended from the tree; then he ran out into the open, busily tying the broken end of the kite cord to a large ball of twine from one of his bulging pockets. In a few moments he had his kite whole again, and Messrs. Queen and Paxton stood some yards away, in a doorway, enjoying the spectacle of an elephantine red-haired man racing with whoops through the gardens to let the wind catch a Mickey Mouse kite and lift it bravely into the air above Riverside Drive, New York City, the United States of America, Planet Earth.
"But T thought you wanted—" began Charley, as Ellery turned back into the house.
"No," growled Ellery. "It wouldn't do any good. Leave Horatio alone with his kites and his picaresque books and his gingerbread house. He's too immersed in the fairy tale he's living to be of any terrestrial use in the investigation of such a grown-up everyday business of murder."
"Strangest case I've ever seen," complained Ellery as they strolled back to the foyer. "Usually you get somewhere in questioning the people in an investigation. If they don't tell the truth, at least they tell lies, which are often more revealing than truths. But in this Potts fantasy— nothing! They don't even know what you're talking about. Their answers sound like Esperanto. First time in my life I've felt completely disheartened in such an early stage."
"Now you know why I want to get Sheila out of here," said Charley quietly.
"I certainly do." Ellery stopped short. "Now what's that?"
They were at the foot of the spiral staircase. Somewhere beyond the upper landing raged a bedlam of thumpings, yells and cracking furniture. There was nothing playful in these sounds. If murder was not being committed upstairs, it was at the very least assault and battery with murderous intent.
Ellery took the staircase in rejuvenated bounds: violence was an act, and acts are measurable; something had broken out into the open at last.... A little way down the foyer, Major Gotch thrust a startled head out of the study. Seeing the two young men speed upstairs, and hearing the noise, the Major thundered out, tightening his belt.
Ellery followed his ears; they led him to Maclyn Potts's room.
Mac and his eldest brother were rolling over and over on the bedroom floor, bumping into the twin beds, in the débris of the overturned and splintered night table and its lamp. Mac's shirt was torn and there were four angry parallel gouges on his right cheek all bleeding. Thurlow's cheeks were gory, already turning purple in splotches. Both were screaming curses as they wrestled; and each was quite simply trying to kill the other with his bare hands. Mac, being younger, hard, and quicker, was closer to his objective. Thurlow looked forlorn.
Ellery plucked the younger man from the floor and held him fast; Charley pounced on Thurlow. Thurlow's little eyes were shooting jets of hate across the disordered bedroom through swollen blackening lids.
"You killed my brother!" shouted Mac, struggling in Ellery's arms. "You killed him in cold blood and I'll make you pay for it, Thurlow, if I have to go to the Chair!"
Thurlow deliberately rolled over, avoiding Charley Paxton's frantic clutch, and scrambled to his feet. He began to paw his baggy tweeds with blind, bleeding strokes.
Sheila and her father ran in, brushing Major Gotch aside. The Major had chosen to remain a spectator.
"Mac, what's happening?" Her eyes widened. "Did he—" Then Sheila sprang at Thurlow, and he cringed. "Did you try to kill my brother Mac, too?" she shrieked. "Did you?"
"Mac, y-your face," stammered his father. "It's all b-bloody!"
"His damned womanish fingernails," panted Mac. "He doesn't even fight like a man, Pop." He pushed Ellery away. "I'm all right, thanks."
Thurlow uttered a peculiar sound. Where his face was not puffed and stained, it was deadly white. His fat cheeks sucked in and out nervously; he kept trying not to lick his cracked lips. There was intense pain on his face. Slowly Thurlow took a handkerchief from his hip pocket, slowly unfolded it, grasped it by one corner and walked over to his brother. He flicked the handkerchief across Mac's wounded cheek.
As in a dream, they heard his voice.
"You've insulted me for the last time, Maclyn. I'll kill you just the way I killed Robert. This can only be wiped out in blood. Meet me at the Shoe tomorrow at dawn. I'll get two more guns—they've taken all of mine. Mr. Queen, will you do me the honor of acting for me once again?"
And, before they could recover from their astonishment, Thurlow was gone.
"I'll meet you!" Mac was roaring. "Bring your guns, Thurlow! Bring 'em, you murdering coward!"
They were holding him down forcibly—Ellery, Charley, Major Gotch. Steve Potts had dropped into a chair, to look at his writhing son without hope.
"You don't know what you're saying, Mac. Stop it, now. Daddy, do something. Charley ... Mr. Queen, you can't let this happen again. Oh God," Sheila sobbed, "I'm going mad myself ..."
Her terror brought Mac to his senses. He ceased struggling, shook off their arms. Then he twisted to lie prone on his bed, face in his hands.
Ellery and Charley half-carried Sheila into the hall. "That maniac—he'll kill my Mac," she wept. "The way he killed Bobby. You've got to stop Thurlow Mr. Queen. Arrest him—something!"
"Stop your hysterics, Sheila. Nothing's going to happen. There won't be another duel. I promise you."
When Charley had led Sheila off, still crying, Ellery stood for a moment outside Mac's room. Steve Potts was trying to soothe his son in an ineffectual murmur. Major Gotch's brassy voice was raised in a reminiscence half biography and half advice, and concerned a Borneo incident in which the artful use of knee and knife had saved his younger, more valuable life. From Mac silence.
Ellery ran his hand desperately through his hair and hurried downstairs to telephone to his father.
14 . . . Mac Solves the Mystery
The old woman suffered a heart attack that evening. For a few moments Ellery suspected malingering. But when Dr. Innis, hastily summoned, took over, and Ellery permitted himself an oral expression of his cynicism, without a word the physician handed him the stethoscope. What Ellery heard through those sensitive microphones banished all suspicions and gave him a respect for Dr. Innis he had not had before. If the Pasteur of Park Avenue had kept this wheezing, stopping, skipping, racing organ from ceasing to function altogether, then he was a very good man indeed.
Cornelia Potts lay gasping high on pillows. Her lips were cyanosed and her eyes, deeply socketed, in agony. With each breath she flung herself upward, as if to engulf the elusive air with her whole body.
Dr. Innis busied himself with hypodermics under Ellery's eye. After a few minutes, seeing the Old Woman's struggles for breath subside a little, he left on tiptoe. Outside the Old Woman's
door he found Detective Flint.
"Old Woman kick the bucket?" Flint inquired with a hopeful inflection. When Ellery shook his head, Flint shook his. "Got a message for you from the Sarge. He's tailing Thurlow."
"Thurlow's left the house?" Ellery said quickly.
"A couple of minutes ago. Sergeant Velie's hangin’ on to his tail like a tick, though."
"I suppose Thurlow's in quest of two more revolvers," mused Ellery. "Let me know when he gets back, will you, Flint?" He went into Mac's room. Major Gotch had vanished for some hole of his own in the vast building, but Stephen Potts was hovering over his son's bed, and Sheila and Charley Paxton.
"I don't know what you're all hanging around me for," Mac was saying listlessly as Ellery came in. The twin of dead Robert lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. "I'm fine. Don't treat me as if I were a baby. I'm all right, I tell you. Pop, go to bed. Let me alone. I want to sleep."
"Mac, you're planning to do something foolish." Sheila held tightly to her brother's hand.
"He wants a duel, he'll get a duel."
Old Steve made washing motions with his gnarled hands.
Ellery said: "Did you people know that Mrs. Potts has had a heart attack?"
It was cruel, but informative. Perhaps not so cruel, considering the startled hope that sprang into those faces, and the slow turn of Mac's head.
Sheila and her father ran out.
It took Charley and Ellery until past midnight to get Mac Potts to sleep. By the time they left his room and shut the door softly, Cornelia Potts not far along the hall was also in a deep sleep. They met Sheila and her father coming wearily out of the Old Woman's apartment with Dr. Innis.
"Condition's improved," said the doctor briefly. "I think she'll pull through this one. Amazing woman. But I'll stay here for another hour or so, anyway." He waved and returned to his patient.
Ellery sent Sheila and Stephen Potts to bed. They were both exhausted. Charley, who looked in hardly better case, commandeered a spare room, recommended that Ellery do the same, and trudged off after Sheila.
Mr. Queen was left alone in the upper hall. He spent much time there, smoking cigarets and pacing before the silent row of doors.
At 1:10 a.m. Thurlow Potts came home. Ellery heard him tottering upstairs. He dodged into the entrance to the turret staircase; Thurlow passed him, lurching. The elder Potts was toting a badly wrapped package. He meandered down the hall and finally wandered into his own rooms.
A moment later Sergeant Velie came upstairs, softly.
"Guns, Sergeant?'
"Yeah. Scared up some old bedbug in a hockshop down on West Street who sold 'em to him." Velie kept his eye on Thurlow's door. "Two big babies. I couldn't go in and find out what they were or I would a lost my bedbug. They looked heavy enough to sink a sub."
"Why so late?"
"He stopped into a row of gin mills on his way back. Got tanked to the eyeballs. For a little guy he sure can lap it up." The Sergeant chuckled. "Mr. Thurlow Potts ain't doin’ any dueling tonight. I can tell you that. This is one that gets slept off, brother, unless he's been kiddin' me."
"Good work. Velie. Wait till he falls asleep. Then go in there and take that package away from him."
"Yes, sir."
Ten minutes later Sergeant Velie slipped out of Thurlow's apartment with the poorly tied package in his arms.
"Beddy-by," grinned the Sergeant. "Flopped on his flop with his clothes on, and he's snorin' away like a water buffalo. What do I do now?"
"Give me the package for one thing," replied Ellery, "and for another get some sleep. Tomorrow I think, will be a large fat day."
Velie yawned and went downstairs. Ellery saw him stretch out in a plush chair in the foyer, tip his hat over his eyes, fold his hands on his hard stomach; heard him settle back with voluptuous sighs.
Ellery opened the package. It contained two colossal revolvers, single-action Colt .45's, the weapon that played so important a role in the winning of the West. "Six-shooters, by thunder!" He hefted one of the formidable guns and wondered how Thurlow had ever expected to handle it: its shape and the size of its grip were adapted for big brawny hands, not the pudgy little white hands of the Thurlow Pottses of this world. Both guns were loaded.
Ellery retied the package, placing it at his feet, and curled up on the top step of the spiral staircase.
At 2:30 Dr. Innis emerged from the Old Woman's apartment, yawning. "She'll sleep through the night now, Mr. Queen. This last hypo injection would put an elephant to sleep. "Night."
"Good night, Doctor."
"I'll be back first thing in the morning. She's in no danger." Dr. Innis trudged downstairs and disappeared.
Ellery rose, clutching Thurlow's newest arsenal, and made a noiseless tour of the floor. When he had satisfied himself that everyone was asleep, or at least in his room, he hunted up an empty bedroom on the top floor, flung himself on the bed with his arms about Thurlow's package, and fell instantly asleep.
At six o'clock sharp, in the red-gold of a charming dawn, Thurlow Potts dashed out of the Potts Palace and raced down the steps to the Shoe. He stopped short. A delegation awaited him.
Inspector Queen, Sergeant Velie, Sheila and her father, Charles Hunter Paxton, a half-dozen plainclothes men, and Ellery Queen.
"My guns!" Thurlow saw the package in Ellery's hands, beaming with relief. "I was so alarmed," he said, wiping his forehead with a silk handkerchief. "But I might have known as my second you'd take care of everything, Mr. Queen."
Mr. Queen did not reply.
"Is everything ready for the duel, gentlemen?"
Inspector Queen spat out the end of his first cheroot of the day. "There's going to be no duel, Mr. Potts. Understand that? I'll repeat it for your benefit. There's going to be no duel. Your dueling days are over. And if you want to argue about it, there are plenty of judges available. Now how about it? Will you settle this fight with your brother sensibly or do I swear out a warrant for your arrest?"
Thurlow blinked.
"Ellery, get this boy Mac down here. You said last night over the phone he'd threatened to kill Thurlow. Get him down here and we'll settle this foolishness once and for all."
Ellery nodded and went back into the house. It was quiet; no servants stirred as yet; Dr. Innis had arrived fifteen minutes before and gone into Cornelia Potts's room with the same heavy tread which had carried him out of the house a few hours earlier.
Ellery went to Mac's door. It was a silent door.
"Mac?"
There was no answer. He opened the door.
Mac was lying on his back in bed, covered to the chin, a very peaceful young man. His eyes were open.
But Mr. Queen's eyes were open, too—wide. He ran over to the bed and pulled back the cover.
Some time during the night Maclyn Potts had solved the mystery of his brother's death. For his brother's murderer had visited him here, and he had looked with those staring eyes upon that creature, and that creature had left behind a hard reflection of his nature—a bullet in Mac's heart.
Ellery stood still, his heart pounding. He felt himself growing enraged. And then a coldness settled down on him. His eyes narrowed. The pillow on which Mac's head rested showed powder burns and one bullet hole.
There were some strange marks on Mac's face—long thin blue marks. As if the second twin had been whipped.
On the empty bed of departed Robert there stood a bowl of gold-spotted liquid. Ellery sniffed it, touched its bland surface with a cautious finger tip. It was cold chicken broth.
He looked around. The door through which he had just come ... A little behind it lay a crop, a crop such as horsemen use to whip their mounts. And, near it, a small revolver with a familiar look.
PART THREE
15 . . . And Whipped Them All Soundly and Put Them to Bed
Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner of New York County, squinted past his fuming cigar at the body of Maclyn Potts and said through his stained teeth: "I've seen a
lot of monkey business but the Potts madness passeth understanding. I can't even bellyache any more. It's too fascinating."
"Spare me your fascinations, Prouty," snarled Inspector Queen, glaring at Mac's corpse with bitterness.
"Those marks on his face," said Dr. Prouty thoughtfully. "Very provocative. I tell you, boys, Freud's at the bottom of this."
"Who?" asked Sergeant Velie.
"Perhaps," remarked Ellery Queen, "perhaps Sigmund's dark land is, Prouty; but I do believe we can touch on nearer shores, if you're referring to the welts on poor Mac's face."
"What d'ye mean, Ellery?" frowned Doc Prouty.
"Not very much, Doc."
The Potts mansion was quiet. The mud had been roiled and beaten; now it settled into new patterns. Mac's body lay on his bed, as Ellery had found it. Nothing had been disturbed except the weapon, which had been taken downtown for ballistics examination.
The photographer, the fingerprint crew, had come and gone. These had been dutiful motions, for the sake of the record. The photographs preserved forever the visual memory of the scene; the fingerprints had no significance except to satisfy the undiscriminating appetite of routine and regulation. They told a story Inspector Queen already knew. Those who were known to have visited deceased's room since its last cleaning by the housemaids had left the marks of their hand there; of those who were not known to have visited the room, there was no fingerprint evidence. But this could have been because the murderer ol Maclyn Potts wore a protective covering on the hands.
Ellery was inclined to this theory. "The fact that no prints at all have been found on the pistol, on the riding crop, or on the bowl of broth indicates gloves, or a very careful wiping off of prints afterwards." In any event, the fingerprints that were present and those that were not had no clue or evidential value.
"When was the boy murdered, Doc?" asked the Inspector.
"Between three and four a.m."
"Middle of the night, huh?" said the Sergeant, who had a passion for simplification.