Calamity Town

by Ellery Queen

  “Now Hermy, that’s not right,” said Judge Martin.

  “I mean he’s not the right man for my Nora,” said Hermy. ”He’s brought her nothing but grief. Nora will divorce that man if I’ve got anything to say about it!”

  “You won’t,” said Doc Willoughby dryly.

  Lola kissed her mother on the cheek. Ellery heard Pat gasp, and guessed that history had just been made.

  “You old Trojan,” laughed Lola. ”When you get there, you’ll insist on running Heaven. Imagine¯you urging a divorce!” And she added grimly: “Why didn’t you feel that way about my divorce from Claude?”

  “This isn’t . . . the same,” said Hermy, embarrassed. And suddenly Mr. Queen saw a bright, bright light. There was an old antagonism between Hermione Wright and her daughter Lola that cut deep into their personalities. Pat was too young to have been a cause of irritation. But Nora-Nora had always been the preferred, Nora had always stood between Hermione and Lola emotionally, an innocent rope in a psychological tug-of-war.

  Hermy was saying to Judge Martin: “We’ll need an extra-fine lawyer for Jim, Eli. Whom can you suggest?”

  “Will I do?” asked Judge Martin.

  John F. was startled. ”Eli! You?”

  “But Uncle Eli,” protested Pat, “I thought¯it’s your court¯I thought you’d have to sit¯”

  “In the first place,” said the old jurist dryly, “that’s not possible. I’m involved. I was present on the scene of the crime. I am known to have strong ties with the Wright family. Legally and ethically, I can’t sit on this case.” He shook his head. ”Jim will be tried before Judge Newbold. Newbold’s a complete outsider.”

  “But you haven’t pleaded a case in fifteen years, Eli,” said John F. suspiciously.

  “Of course, if you’re afraid I won’t do¯” He smiled at their protestations. ”I forgot to mention that I’m retiring from the Bench, so . . . ”

  “You old fraud,” growled Dr. Willoughby. ”John, Eli’s quitting the Bench just to defend this case!”

  “Now Eli, we can’t let you do that,” said John F.

  “Nonsense,” said the Judge gruffly. ”Don’t go getting any sentimental ideas. Was going to retire anyway. Old Has-been Martin. Itching to get to work again, instead of dozing my life away in a robe. If you want a has-been in your corner, we won’t say any more about it.”

  Hermy burst into tears and ran from the room.

  Chapter 20

  No Time for Pride

  The next morning Pat rapped on Ellery’s door, and he opened it to find her dressed for the street.

  “Nora wants to see you.” She looked around the room curiously. Ludie had already done the room, but it was briskly littered again, as if Ellery had been hard at work for some time.

  “Right with you.” Ellery looked fatigued. He fussed with some pencil-scrawled papers on the desk; the typewriter carriage held a sheet. He slipped the cover over the portable and, putting the papers in a desk drawer, locked it. The key he dropped casually into his pocket, and put on his jacket.

  “Working?” asked Pat.

  “Well . . . yes. This way out, Miss Wright.” Mr. Queen walked her out of his room and locked the door.

  “Your novel?”

  “In a way.” They went down to the second floor.

  “What does ‘in a way’ mean?”

  “Yes and no. I’ve been . . . you might call it reconnoitering.” Ellery looked her over. ”Going out? You look cute.”

  “I’ve a special reason for looking cute this morning,” murmured Pat. ”In fact, I’ll have to look irresistible.”

  “You do. But where are you going?”

  “Can’t a girl have any secrets from you, Mr. Queen?” Pat stopped him outside Nora’s room and looked him in the eye. ”Ellery, you’ve been going over your notes on the case, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Find anything?” she asked eagerly.

  “No.”

  “Damn!”

  “It’s a queer thing,” grumbled Ellery, putting his arm around her. ”Something’s been annoying me for weeks. Flying around in my skull. Can’t catch it . . . I thought it might be a fact¯something trivial¯that I’d overlooked. You know, I . . . well, I based my novel on you people¯the facts, the events, the interrelationships. So everything’s in my notes that’s happened.” He shook his head. ”But I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Maybe,” frowned Pat, “it’s a fact you don’t know.”

  Ellery held her off at arm’s length. ”That,” he said slowly, “is very likely. Do you know anything that¯”

  “You know if I did, I’d tell you, Ellery.”

  “I wonder.” Then he shrugged and said: “Well! Let’s go in and see Nora.”

  Nora was sitting up in bed, reading the Wrightsville Record. She was thinner, unhealthy-looking. Ellery was shocked to see how transparent the skin of her hands had grown.

  “I always say,” grinned Mr. Queen, “that the test of a woman’s attractiveness is¯how does she look in bed of a winter’s morning.”

  Nora smiled wanly and patted the bed. ”Do I pass?”

  “Summa cum laude,” said Ellery, sitting down beside her.

  Nora looked pleased. ”Most of it’s powder, lipstick¯yes, and a dab of rouge on each cheek¯and of course this ribbon in my hair is a help. Charming liar! Patty darling, sit down.”

  “I really have to be going, Nor. You two can talk¯”

  “But Pats, I want you to hear this, too.”

  Pat glanced at Ellery; he blinked, and she sat down in the chintz-covered chair on the other side of the bed. She seemed nervous, and Ellery kept watching her as Nora talked.

  “First,” said Nora, “I owe you an apology.”

  “Who, me?” said Ellery, astonished. ”For what, Nora?”

  “For having accused you of telling the police about those three letters and the toxicology book. Last week. When Chief Dakin said he was going to arrest Jim and I lost my head.”

  “You see? I’d forgotten it. You do the same.”

  Nora took his hand. ”It was a malicious thought. But for the moment I couldn’t imagine who’d told them but you. You see, I thought they knew¯”

  “You weren’t responsible, Nora,” said Pat. ”Ellery understands that.”

  “But there’s something else,” cried Nora. ”I can apologize for a nasty thought, but I can’t wipe out what I did to Jim.” Her lower lip quivered. ”If not for me, they’d never have found out about those letters!”

  “Nor dear,” said Pat, leaning over her, “you know you mustn’t. If you keep crying, I’ll tell Uncle Milo and he won’t let you have any company.”

  Nora sniffled with her handkerchief to her nose. ”I don’t know why I didn’t burn them. Such a stupid thing¯to keep them in that hatbox in my closet! But I had some idea I’d be able to find out who really wrote them. I was sure Jim hadn’t¯”

  “Nora,” said Ellery gently, “forget it.”

  “But I practically handed Jim over to the police!”

  “That isn’t true. Don’t forget Dakin came here last week prepared to arrest Jim. Questioning you beforehand was just a formality.”

  “Then you think those letters and the book don’t make any essential difference?” asked Nora eagerly.

  Ellery got up from the bed and looked out the window at the winter sky. ”Well . . . not too much.”

  “You’re lying to me!”

  “Mrs. Haight,” said Pat firmly, “you’ve had enough company for one morning. Ellery, scram.”

  Ellery turned around. ”This sister of yours, Pat, will suffer more from doubt than from knowledge. Nora, I’ll tell you exactly what the situation is.”

  Nora gripped her comforter with both hands.

  “If Dakin was prepared to arrest Jim before he knew about the letters and the toxicology book, then obviously he and Carter Bradford thought they had a good case.” Nora made a tiny sound. ”With the letters and the book, therefore
, they just as obviously have a better case. Now that’s the truth, you’ve got to face it, you’ve got to stop accusing yourself, you’ve got to be sensible and get well again, you’ve got to stand by Jim and give him courage.” He leaned over her and took her hand. ”Jim needs your strength, Nora. You have a strength he lacks. He can’t face you, but if he knows you’re behind him, never wavering, having faith¯”

  “Yes,” breathed Nora, her eyes shining, “I have. Tell him I have.”

  Pat came around the bed and kissed Ellery on the cheek.

  “Going my way?” asked Ellery as they left the house.

  “Which way is that?”

  “Courthouse. I want to see Jim.”

  “Oh. I’ll drive you down.”

  “Don’t go out of your way¯”

  “I’m going to the Courthouse, too.”

  “To see Jim?”

  “Don’t ask me questions!” cried Pat a little hysterically.

  They drove down the Hill in silence. There was ice on the road, and the chains sang cheerfully. Wrightsville looked nicely wintry, all whites and reds and blacks, no shading; it had the country look, the rich and simple cleanliness, of a Grant Wood painting.

  But in town there were people, and sloppy slush, and a meanness in the air; the shops looked pinched and stale; everybody was hurrying through the cold; no one smiled. In the Square they had to stop for traffic; a shopgirl recognized Pat and pointed her out with a lacquered fingernail to a pimpled youth in a leather storm-breaker. They whispered excitedly as Pat kicked the gas pedal.

  On the Courthouse steps Ellery said: “Not that way, Miss Wright,” and steered Pat around to the side entrance.

  “What’s the idea?” demanded Pat.

  “The press,” said Mr. Queen. ”Infesting the lobby. I assume we’d rather not answer questions.”

  They took the side elevator.

  “You’ve been here before,” said Pat slowly.

  “Yes.”

  Pat said: “I think I’ll pay Jim a visit myself.”

  The County Jail occupied the two topmost floors of the Courthouse. As they stepped out of the elevator into the waiting room, an odor of steam and Lysol rushed into their noses, and Pat swallowed hard. But she managed a smile for the benefit of Wally Planetsky, the officer on duty.

  “If it ain’t Miss Pat,” said the officer awkwardly.

  “Hullo, Wally. How’s the old badge?”

  “Fine, fine, Miss Pat.”

  “Wally used to let me breathe on his badge and shine it up when I was in grade school,” Pat explained. ”Wally, don’t stand there shifting from one foot to the other! You know what I’m here for.”

  “I guess,” muttered Wally Planetsky.

  “Where’s his cell?”

  “Judge Martin’s with him, Miss Pat. Rules say only one visitor at a time¯”

  “Who cares about the rules? Take us to my brother-in-law’s cell, Wally!”

  “This gentleman a reporter? Mr. Haight, he won’t see any reporters excepting that Miss Roberts.”

  “No, he’s a friend of mine and Jim’s.”

  “I guess,” muttered Planetsky again; and they began a long march, interrupted by unlocking of iron doors, locking of iron doors, steps on concrete, unlocking and locking and steps through corridors lined with man-sized birdcages; and at each step the odor of steam and Lysol grew stronger, and Pat grew greener, and toward the last she clung tightly to Ellery’s arm. But she kept her chin up.

  “That’s it,” murmured Ellery; and she swallowed several times in succession.

  Jim sprang to his feet when he spied them, a quick flush coming to his sallow cheeks; but then he sat down again, the blood draining away, and said hoarsely: “Hello there. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Hello, Jim!” said Pat cheerily. ”How are you?”

  Jim looked around his cell. ”All right,” he said with a vague smile.

  “It’s clean, anyway,” grunted Judge Martin, “which is more than you could say about the old County Jail. Well, Jim, I’ll be on my way. I’ll drop in tomorrow for another talk.”

  “Thanks, Judge.” Jim smiled the same vague smile up at the Judge.

  “Nora’s fine,” said Pat with an effort, as if Jim had asked.

  “That’s swell,” said Jim. ”Fine, uh?”

  “Yes,” said Pat in a shrill voice.

  “That’s swell,” said Jim again.

  Mercifully, Ellery said: “Pat, didn’t you say you had an errand somewhere? There’s something I’d like to say to Jim in private.”

  “Not that it will do you the least good,” said Judge Martin in an angry tone. It seemed to Ellery that the old jurist’s anger was assumed for the occasion. ”This boy hasn’t the sense he was born with! Come along, Patricia.”

  Pat turned her pale face to Ellery, mumbled something, smiled weakly at Jim, and fled with the Judge. Keeper Planetsky relocked the cell door after them, shaking his head.

  Ellery looked down at Jim; Jim was studying the bare floor of his cell.

  “He wants me to talk,” mumbled Jim suddenly.

  “Well, why not, Jim?”

  “What could I say?”

  Ellery offered him a cigarette. Jim took it; but when Ellery held a lighted match up, he shook his head and slowly tore the cigarette to shreds.

  “You could say,” murmured Ellery between puffs, “you could say that you didn’t write those three letters or underline that paragraph on arsenic.”

  For an instant Jim’s fingers stopped tormenting the cigarette; then they resumed their work of destruction. His colorless lips flattened against his face in something that was almost a snarl.

  “Jim.” Jim glanced at him and then away. ”Did you really plan to poison Nora?”

  Jim did not even indicate that he had heard the question.

  “You know, Jim, often when a man is guilty of a crime, he’s much better off telling the truth to his lawyer and friends than keeping quiet. And when he’s not guilty, it’s actually criminal to keep quiet. It’s a crime against himself.”

  Jim said nothing.

  “How do you expect your family and friends to help you when you won’t help yourself?”

  Jim’s lips moved.

  “What did you say, Jim?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As a matter of fact, in this case,” said Ellery briskly, “your crime of silence isn’t directed half so much against yourself as it is against your wife and the child that’s coming. How can you be so far gone in stupidity or listlessness that you’d drag them down with you, too?”

  “Don’t say that!” said Jim hoarsely. ”Get out of here! I didn’t ask you to come! I didn’t ask Judge Martin to defend me! I didn’t ask for anything! I just want to be let alone!”

  “Is that,” asked Ellery, “what you want me to tell Nora?”

  There was such misery in Jim’s eyes as he sat, panting, on the edge of his cell bunk that Ellery went to the door and called Planetsky.

  All the signs. Cowardice. Shame. Self-pity . . . But that other thing, the stubbornness, the refusal to talk about anything, as if in the mere act of self-expression there were danger . . .

  As Ellery followed the guard down the eye-studded corridor, a cell exploded in his brain with a great and disproportionate burst of light. He actually stopped walking, causing old Planetsky to turn and look at him in surprise. But then he shook his head and strode on again. He’d almost had it that time¯by sheer divination. Maybe the next time . . .

  * * *

  Pat drew a deep breath outside the frosted-glass door on the second floor of the County Courthouse, tried to see her reflection, poked nervously at her mink hat, tried out a smile or two, not too successfully, and then went in.

  Miss Billcox looked as if she were seeing a ghost.

  “Is the Prosecutor in, Billy?” murmured Pat.

  “I’ll . . . see, Miss Wright,” said Miss Billcox, and fled.

  Carter Bradford came out to her himself, in
a hurry.

  “Come in, Pat.” He looked tired and astonished. He stood aside to let her pass, and as she passed, she heard his uneven breathing. O Lord, she thought. Maybe. Maybe it isn’t too late.

  “Working?” His desk was covered with legal papers.

  “Yes, Pat.” He went around his desk to stand behind it. One sheaf of bound papers lay open¯he closed it surreptitiously and kept his hand on it as he nodded toward a leather chair. Pat sat down and crossed her knees.

  “Well,” said Pat, looking around, “the old office¯I mean the new office¯doesn’t seem to have changed, Cart.”

  “About the only thing that hasn’t.”

  “You needn’t be so careful about that legal paper,” smiled Pat. ”I haven’t got X-ray eyes.”

  He flushed and removed his hand.

  “There isn’t a shred of Mata Hari in my makeup.”

  “I’m nor¯” Cart began angrily. Then he pushed his fingers through his hair in the old, old gesture. ”Here we are, scrapping again. Pat, you look simply delicious.”

  “It’s nice of you to say so,” sighed Pat, “when I really am beginning to look my age.”

  “Look your age! Why, you’re¯” Cart swallowed hard. Then he said, as angrily as before: “I’ve missed you like hell.”

  Pat said rigidly: “I suppose I’ve missed you, too.” Oh, dear! That wasn’t what she had meant to say at all. But it was hard, facing him this way, alone in a room together for the first time in so long¯hard to keep from feeling . . . feelings.

  “I dream about you,” said Cart with a self-conscious laugh. ”Isn’t that silly?”

  “Now, Cart, you know perfectly well you’re just saying that to be polite. People don’t dream about people. I mean in the way you mean. They dream about animals with long noses.”

  “Maybe it’s just before I drop off.” He shook his head. ”Dreaming or not dreaming, it’s always the same. Your face. I don’t know why. It’s not such a wonderful face. The nose is wrong, and your mouth’s wider than Carmel’s, and you’ve got that ridiculous way of looking at people side-wise, like a parrot¯”

  And she was in his arms, and it was just like a spy drama, except that she hadn’t planned the script exactly this way. This was to come after¯as a reward to Cart for being a sweet, obliging, self-sacrificing boy. She hadn’t thought of herself at all, assuming regal stardom. Certainly this pounding of her heart wasn’t in the plot¯not with Jim caged in a cell six stories above her head and Nora lying in bed across town trying to hold on to something.