by Ellery Queen
"The shot was fired through the pillow." Ellery pointed to the powder burns and the bullet hole.
"That's why no one heard it," his father nodded.
"Probably," reflected Ellery, "when the killer stole in here at three or four a.m. Mac's head had either slipped off the pillow in his sleep or was resting on one corner of it, so that his murderer easily slipped it from under his head. Certainly Mac didn't wake up until a second or two before the shot was fired, otherwise there'd be signs of a tussle, and there aren't."
"Maybe the picking up of the pillow was what woke him," suggested Velie.
Ellery nodded. "Quite possibly. But he had no time to do more than stare at the face bent over him. The next moment he was dead."
Dr. Prouty shivered the least bit. "The things people do."
Inspector Queen had no mind for moralizing; upon him lay the pressure. "Then after the shot was fired, this killer stuck the pillow back under Mac's head—"
"Neat soul," murmured Mr. Queen. "Yes, the things people do . . ."
"And took that riding crop and smacked the boy over the face with it? Is that the way it happened. Doc?"
"Yes," said Prouty, gazing at the thin blue welts, "the whipping was administered shortly after death, not before. I'd say within seconds. Yes, he dropped the gun and picked up the crop and whacked away. I'd say he whacked away even before he replaced the pillow, Dick."
Inspector Queen shook his head. "It's beyond me."
"But not beyond Mr. Queen," boomed the Sergeant. "This is the kind of stuff you specialize in, ain't it, Mr. Queen?"
Mr. Queen did not react to this obvious sarcasm.
"And another thing," grumbled the Inspector. "That bowl of soup. For Mike's sake, did this crazy killer bring up a midnight snack with him?"
"How d'ye know he brought it up for himself?" argued the Sergeant. "Maybe he was bringin' it up to this young guy. In case Mac woke up and said, 'What the hell are you doin' in my bedroom at four o'clock in the morning, you so-an-so?' Then he could show the bowl of soup and say: 'I figgered you might want some soup before the duel. Chicken broth is swell just before duels,' he could say. Get his confidence, see? Then—whammo! And he's killed another chicken." The Sergeant flushed in the silence. "Anyway," he said doggedly, "that's the way / look at it."
"When I said 'midnight snack,' Velie," said the Inspector, softly savage, "I was just trying to express in my crude way the fact that this is a wacky kill, Velie—madness —lunacy. Ellery, what are some more synonyms? Velie, dry up!"
"Okay, okay."
"The strange part of the Sergeant's theory," murmured Ellery, "is not its wrongness, but its lightness."
His father stared, and Velie looked amazed.
"Oh, it's not right," Ellery hastened to add. "It's all wrong, in fact. But it's on the right track. I mean it's a reasonable theory—it attempts to put a reasonable construction on an absurdity. And that's definitely correct, Dad."
"You're getting deluded, too, Ellery," said Doc Prouty.
"Not at all. This bowl of chicken broth was brought up here by the killer—incidentally, it was the killer, because the soup wasn't here when I left Mac asleep in bed last night—and, what's more, the killer brought the soup up for a completely logical reason."
"To eat it?" sneered the Inspector. "Or to have Maclyn Potts eat it?"
"No, it wasn't brought here to be eaten, Dad."
"Then why?"
"For the same reason the crop was brought .., and used. By the way, whose riding crop is it, Dad? Have you identified it yet?"
"It belonged to Mac himself," replied the Inspector with a sort of frustrated satisfaction, as if to say: And see what you can make out of that little pearl of information!
"And the soup and bowl?"
"From the kitchen. That Mrs. Whatsis, the cook, says she always keeps chicken broth handy in the refrigerator. The Old Woman has to have it."
"So this killer," said Sergeant Velie, undaunted, "this killer, before he comes up to the future scene of his foul crime, this killer goes downstairs to the kitchen, takes a bowl, fills it up with cold soup from the icebox, and pussyfoots it upstairs here. There's even a splash or two on the staircase, where the soup slopped over as he carried it up. Cold soup," he said thoughtfully. "I've heard of jellied soup," he said, "and hot soup, but just plain cold soup . . ." "Don't fret yourself into a breakdown over it, Velie," yipped Inspector Queen. "Just check back with downtown and see if they've done a ballistics yet on that rod. Ellery, come on."
Dr. Prouty left, reluctantly, saying to Mr. Queen that this was one case he wished he could follow through ex officio, you lucky dog, you. The body was to be picked up and carted down to the Morgue for routine autopsy, but nothing more could be expected in the way of discoveries: the mouth had shown no trace of soup, or poison, death resulted from one .38-caliber bullet in the heart, and so it was all dirty work from here on in, and he didn't even think he'd attend the funeral. {Exit Dr. Prouty.)
Inspector Queen and his son made a grand tour of the mansion before retiring for further conversations.
These were dreary rounds. Sheila lay on a chaise longue in her boudoir without tears, staring at her ceiling. (Mr. Queen was uneasily reminded of her brother, who lay in a similar attitude a few doors down the hall, not breathing.) Charley Paxton kept chafing Sheila's hands, his swollen eyes fixed fearfully on her expressionless face. It was Stephen Brent Potts's voice which emerged, almost without stuttering, in loving reassurance.
"There's no sense in giving in, Sheila lambie," he was saying as the Queens stole in. "Mac's dead. All right, he's dead. M-murdered. What are we supposed to do—commit suicide? Curl up and d-die? Sheila, we'll fight back. We're not alone, baby. The p-police are our friends. Charley's on our sis-side ... Aren't you, Charley?" Old Steve dug Charley sharply in the ribs.
"I love you, darling," was all Charley could say as he chafed Sheila's cold hands.
"Don't lie there that way, Sheila," old Steve said desperately. "Do you want a doctor?"
"No." Sheila's voice was faint.
"If you don't snap out of this, I'll call one. I'll call two. I'll make your life miserable. Sheila honey, don't go under. Talk to me!"
"Never would have believed it of the old duck," muttered the Inspector as he and Ellery left, unobserved. "Of all these people, he's the one with guts. Where's that sucker Gotch?"
"Taking a nap in his room, Velie told me." Ellery seemed pained by the memory of that white, frozen face. "Taking a nap!"
"Steve sent him to bed. It seems," growled Mr. Queen, "that the worm has turned and, coincidentally with the illness of his mate and the murder of his second son, has developed hair on his chest. I like that little man."
"Like—dislike!" raved his father. "Who cares how wonderful they are? I want to see this case solved and get the kit and caboodle of 'em out of my hair! What did he send Gotch to bed for?" he asked suspiciously.
"Gotchie-boy has been 'worrying' about him too much, it appears. Hasn't had his proper rest. Stephen Brent Potts version."
"Gotchie-boy has been hitting the bottle too much, that's what Gotchie-boy's been doing," rasped the Inspector. "If this ain't all a smoke screen. I don't get that old pirate at all."
"It's very simple, Dad—he found snug harbor, and he's dug in like a barnacle. By the way, have you had a report on the Major yet?" "Not yet."
They hunted Louella in her ivory tower, they took wing and visited Horatio in his house in the clouds, they returned to the Palace and looked in on Thurlow. Louella was still creating sea slime in her porcelain pans. Horatio was still wielding a quill on the greater Mother Goose— wielding it even more zestfully. And Thurlow was sleeping like a just man who has offered to do the honorable thing and been absolved by forces beyond a chevalier's control. An aroma of alcohol hovered over his pillow, like angel's wings.
Nothing had changed except that, as Horatio Potts put it, looking up from his versifying, "one person less lives in the house."
The Inspector crossed lances with Dr. Innis upstairs in Cornelia Potts's sitting room. The Inspector was determined to speak with mother of deceased; Dr. Innis was equally determined that the Inspector should not speak to mother of deceased.
"Unless," said Dr. Innis stiffly, "you promise you won't mention this latest development, Inspector."
"Promise your jaundiced liver," said the Inspector. "What would I want to speak to her about if not this 'latest development,' as you put it so delicately?"
"Then I'm sorry. She's a very sick woman. The shock of another murder—another son's death—would undoubtedly kill her on the spot."
"I doubt it, Doctor," said the Inspector grumpily; but he gave up the joust and took Ellery down to the study. "Sit down, son," sighed the old gentleman. "You generally have a cockeyed slant on cockeyed cases. How about squinting at this one? I'm groggy."
"I'm a little crocked myself," admitted Ellery with a wry smile.
"Sure, but what are you thinking?"
"Of Bob. Of Mac. Of life and death and how ineffectual people really are. Of Sheila ... What are you thinking?"
"I don't know what to think. In the past this family of drizzle-birds, while they've been mixed up in plenty of trouble, have always wound up in the civil courts. Little stuff, inflated big. But now murder! And two in a row ... I'm thinking something's been smoking under the surface for a long time. I'm thinking the fire's broken through. And I'm thinking: Is it out, or isn't it?"
"You think there may be further attempts?"
The Inspector nodded. "It might be just the beginning of a plot to wipe out the lot of them. Not that that wouldn't be a good thing," he added dourly. "Except that I wish they'd started on the nuts rather than those two nice young fellas."
"Yes," said Ellery grimly.
"Is that all you're going to say—'yes?' Then there's this crazy lashing of Mac Potts's dead face. That looks to me like pure hate—psychopathic. The chicken broth certainly indicates an unbalanced mind, in spite of that fancy speechifying you made upstairs to Velie."
"But the whipping and the leaving of a bowl of chicken broth are easy, Dad," said Ellery patiently. "As I said, they were both introduced into the murder's stew for identical reasons."
"Flog a corpse—leave soup around." The Inspector shook his head. "You'll have to show me, son."
"Certainly." And Ellery paused a moment. Then he did the most absurd thing. He began to chant, with an expression of utter gravity, a nursery rhyme:—
"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread, And whipped them all soundly, and put them to bed."
And Mr. Queen clasped his hands behind his head and gazed steadily at his father.
His father's eyes were like new quarters.
"The Old Woman," continued Ellery quietly. "She lives in a Shoe—or rather a house that the Shoe built. And there's even a nice, literal Shoe on the front lawn. She has so many children . . , yes, indeed. Six! That she doesn't know what to do with them I should think is evident to anyone; all her eccentricity and cruelty are masks for her frustration and helplessness."
"She gave them some broth," muttered the Inspector. "That chicken broth in Mac's room!"
"Without any bread," his son added dryly. "Don't overlook that precious coincidence. Or perhaps you're not aware that on Dr. Innis's orders Mrs. Potts may not eat bread, and consequently she serves none at her table."
"And whipped them all soundly—I"
"Yes, or at any rate whipped Mac. And the bed motif? Mac was killed in bed. You see?"
The Inspector jumped up, fire-red. "No, blast it, I don't see! Nobody could make me believe—"
"But you do believe, Dad," sighed Ellery. "You're terribly impressed. A number of people crazy, and now apparently a series of crimes following a Mother Goose pattern. Well, of course. Would crazy people commit rational crimes? No, no. Crazy people would commit crazy crimes. Mother Goose crimes . . . Don't you see that you're supposed to believe in the lunacy of these two crimes? Don't you see that a sly brain is creating an atmosphere of madness, of rather utilizing the one that exists, in order to cloak the reality? And what could madness cloak but sanity?"
The Inspector drew a grateful breath. "Well, well. And I'd have fallen for it, too. Of course, son. This is the work of a sane one, not a crazy one."
"Not necessarily."
The Inspector's jaw dropped.
Ellery smiled. "We just don't know. I was merely expounding an attractive theory. As far as logic is concerned, this might well be the work of a madman."
"I wish you'd make up your mind," said his father irritably.
Ellery shrugged. "You've got to have more than theories to bring to the District Attorney."
"Let's get on with it, let's get on with it!"
"All right, we'll proceed on the rational theory. What comes to mind immediately?"
The Inspector said promptly: "We're supposed to pin this on Horatio Potts. He's writing a modern 'Mother Goose.' "
Ellery laughed. "You saw that, you old fox."
"Plain as the nose on your face. If this is the work of a sane mind, then Horatio is being framed for the murders of his two half-brothers."
"Yes, indeed."
"Horatio being framed .., why, the man hardly knows what's going on!
"Don't be too sure of that," said Ellery, knitting his brows. "Horatio's a good deal of a poseur. He knows lots more than he lets on.
"Now what d'ye mean?"
"Just speculating, Dad. The man's not a fool. Horatio has an unorthodox slant on life and a great cowardice where adult problems are concerned, but he's aware of the score at all times. Believe me."
"You're no help at all," grumbled the Inspector. "All right, score or no score, Horatio's supposed to take the rap; we're to think he's behind all this. That means he isn't."
"Not necessarily," said Ellery.
"Will you stick to one point of view?" howled the Inspector, now maddened beyond reason. His face was very red indeed. "Look," he began again, desperately. "Certain things we know—"
"You wouldn't be referring," asked Ellery, "to the arithmetic involved?"
"Yes, the arithmetic involved! When all six children were alive, each one stood to come into five millions at the death of the Old Woman. Then Robert Potts was knocked off, leaving five. Now Mac's gone, leaving four. Four into thirty millions makes seven and a half million apiece—so the murder of the twins means over two and a half million bucks extra to each of the four surviving children!"
"I can't get excited over a mere two and a half million," moaned Mr. Queen. "I doubt if anyone could, where five millions are guaranteed. Oh, well, I'm probably wrong. It's your fault for having brought into the world the son of a poor man, Dad."
Providentially, Sergeant Velie came in.
Velie tramped in to ease his two hundred and twenty-five pounds into Major Gotch's favorite chair. He was yawning.
"Well?" snapped the Inspector, turning the wind of his fury on this more vulnerable vessel.
The Sergeant looked pained. "What did I do now? Don't follow orders, get bawled out. Follow orders—"
"What order are you following now?"
"The ballistics check-up."
"Well, what do you think this is, the gentlemen's lounge at the Grand Street Turkish Baths? Report!"
"Yes, sir." Velie rose with a noticeable lack of fatigue. "The Lieutenant says the gun found on the floor upstairs is the gun with which Maclyn Potts was homicidally and with murderous intent shot to death—"
"That," said the Inspector, spreading his hands to Ellery, "is news, is it not? The gun is the gun. We're certainly progressing! What else?"
"That's all," said the Sergeant sullenly. "What did you expect, Inspector—the Lieut should come up with the name of the killer?"
"Just what kind of gun was it, Sergeant?" interposed Ellery. "I didn't get a good look at it."
"It's a Smith
& Wesson .38/32 revolver, 2-inch barrel, takes an S. & W. .38 cartridge—"
Mr. Queen gave voice to a strangled exclamation.
His father stared. "What's the matter? Sick?"
Ellery sprang to his feet. "Sick! Don't you recall the fourteen guns Thurlow bought at Cornwall & Ritchey's? Don't you remember that you've accounted for only twelve? Don't you remember that two guns are missing, that the missing guns are exact duplicates of the two used in the Bob-Thurlow duel—don't you remember that, according to the store's check list, one of those two missing guns is a Smith & Wesson .38/32 with a 2-inch barrel? And now you tell me the gun which shot Mac Potts to death last night is a Smith & Wesson .38/32 with a 2-inch barrel!"
After a long time the Inspector choked: "Velie, phone the Lieutenant at H.Q, and get the serial number of the gun in Maclyn Potts's murder. Then phone Cornwall & Ritchey and get the serial number of the missing Smith & Wesson. Right away, please."
Dazed by this politeness, Sergeant Velie staggered out Five minutes later he returned with the information that the Smith & Wesson which had taken Mac's life was the same Smith & Wesson that appeared on the check list as unaccounted for.
One of the two missing revolvers had been found.
"Clearer and foggier," moaned Inspector Queen. "Now we know why the killer of Robert hid two of the fourteen guns Thurlow bought—to use one of 'em, the S. & W., for a second murder."
"The murder of Mac," put in Velie, the simplifier.
"That's certainly the look of it," Ellery mumbled. "But why did he steal and hide two guns?"
Sergeant Velie's face fell. "You mean we ain't through?"
"Of course we 'ain't' through!" snarled his superior. "Two guns missing, one of 'em turns up in a murder, so what would the killer be doing with the other if he isn't planning still another killing?"
"A third murder," Ellery muttered. "Everything points to it. Not only the missing guns ..." He shook his head.
"Then we got to find that last gun—the colt .25 automatic that didn't turn up," said the Sergeant with a groan, "or go fishin' for dreams."
"Not that finding the missing Colt would necessarily stop a third murder," Ellery pointed out. "We have no Achilles here, and there are more ways of killing than by an arrow. But finding the missing Colt might uncover a clue to the person who secreted it. By all means search for it. And at once."