by Ellery Queen
And after another few moments, the detectives reached their own car and took up the chase, one driving, the other still firing wildly. But Jim was well out of range by this time, and everyone knew he had a splendid chance of escaping. The two cars disappeared.
For some moments there was no sound on the hillside but the sound of the wind in the trees.
Then the crowd shouted and swept over the Wrights and their friends, and automobiles began flying down the hill in merry clouds of dust, as if this were a paid entertainment and their drivers were determined not to miss the exciting climax.
* * *
Hermy lay on the living-room settee, and Pat and Lola were applying cold vinegar compresses to her head while John F. turned the pages of one of his stamp albums with great deliberation, as if it were one of the most important things in the world. He was in a corner by the window to catch the late afternoon light. Clarice Martin was holding Hermy’s hand tightly in an ecstasy of remorse, crying over her defection during the trial and over Nora and over this last shocking blow. And Hermy¯Hermy the Great!¯was comforting her friend!
Lola slapped a new compress so hard on her mother’s forehead that Hermy smiled at her reproachfully. Pat took it away from her angry sister and set it right.
At the fireplace Dr. Willoughby and Mr. Queen conversed in low tones.
Then Judge Martin came in from outdoors.
And with him was Carter Bradford.
Everything stopped, as if an enemy had walked into camp. But Carter ignored it. He was quite pale but held himself erect; and he kept from looking at Pat, who had turned paler than he. Clarice Martin was frankly frightened. She glanced quickly at her husband, but Judge Eli shook his head and went over to the window to seat himself by John F. and watch the fluttering pages of the stamp album, so gay with color.
“I don’t want to intrude, Mrs. Wright,” said Carter stiffishly. ”But I had to tell you how badly I feel about¯all this.”
“Thank you, Carter,” said Hermy. ”Lola, stop babying me! Carter, what about”¯Hermy swallowed¯”Jim?”
“Jim got away, Mrs. Wright.”
“I’m glad,” cried Pat. ”Oh, I’m so very glad!”
Carter glanced her way. ”Don’t say that, Patty. That sort of thing never winds up right. Nobody ‘gets away.’ Jim would have been better . . . advised to have stuck it out.”
“So that you could hound him to his death, I suppose! All over again!”
“Pat.” John F. left his stamp album where it was. He put his thin hand on Carter’s arm. ”It was nice of you to come here today, Cart. I’m sorry if I was every harsh with you. How does it look?”
“Bad, Mr. Wright.” Carter’s lips tightened. ”Naturally, the alarm is out. All highways are being watched. It’s true he got away, but it’s only a question of time before he’s captured¯”
“Bradford,” inquired Mr. Queen from the fireplace, “have you traced the getaway car?”
“Yes.” ‘
“Looked like a put-up job to me,” muttered Dr. Willoughby. ”That car was in a mighty convenient place, and the motor was running!”
“Whose car is it?” demanded Lola.
“It was rented from Homer Findlay’s garage in Low Village this morning.”
“Rented!” exclaimed Clarice Martin. ”By whom?”
“Roberta Roberts.”
Ellery said: “Ah,” in a tone of dark satisfaction, and nodded as if that were all he had wanted to know. But the others were surprised.
Lola tossed her head. ”Good for her!”
“Carter let me talk to the woman myself just now,” said Judge Eli Martin wearily. ”She’s a smart female. Insists she hired the car just to drive to the cemetery this morning.”
“And that she left the motor running by mistake,” added Carter Bradford dryly.
“And was it a coincidence that she also turned the car about so that it pointed down the hill?” murmured Mr. Queen.
“That’s what I asked her,” said Carter. ”Oh, there’s no question about her complicity, and Dakin’s holding her. But that doesn’t get Jim Haight back, nor does it give us a case against this Roberts woman. We’ll probably have to let her go.” He said angrily: “I never did trust that woman!”
“She visited Jim on Sunday,” remarked Ellery reflectively.
“Also yesterday! I’m convinced she arranged the escape with Jim then.”
“What difference does it make?” Hermy sighed. ”Escape¯no escape¯Jim won’t ever escape.” Then Hermy said a queer thing, considering how she had always claimed she felt about her son-in-law and his guilt. Hermy said: “Poor Jim,” and closed her eyes.
* * *
The news arrived at ten o’clock that same night. Carter Bradford came over again, and this time he went directly to Pat Wright and took her hand. She was so astonished she forgot to snatch it away.
Carter said gently: “It’s up to you and Lola now, Pat.”
“What . . . on earth are you talking about?” asked Pat in a shrill tight voice.
“Dakin’s men have found the car Jim escaped in.”
“Found it?”
Ellery Queen rose from a dark corner and came over into the light. ”If it’s bad news, keep your voices down. Mrs. Wright’s just gone to bed, and John F. doesn’t look as if he could take any more today. Where was the car found?”
“At the bottom of a ravine off Route 478A, up in the hills. About fifty miles from here.”
“Lord,” breathed Pat, staring.
“It had crashed through the highway rail,” growled Carter, “just past a hairpin turn. The road is tricky up there. Dropped about two hundred feet¯”
“And Jim?” asked Ellery.
Pat sat down in the love seat by the fireplace, looking up at Cart as if he were a judge about to pronounce doom.
“Found in the car.” Cart turned aside. ”Dead.” He turned back and looked humbly at Pat. ”So that’s the end of the case. It’s the end, Pat . . . ”
“Poor Jim,” whispered Pat.
* * *
“I want to talk to you two,” said Mr. Queen.
It was very late. But there was no time. Time had been lost in the nightmare. Hermione had heard, and Hermione had gone to pieces. Strange that the funeral of her daughter should have found her strong and the news of her son-in-law’s death weak. Perhaps it was the crushing tap after the heavy body blows. But Hermy collapsed, and Dr. Willoughby spent hours with her trying to get her to sleep. John F. was in hardly better case: he had taken to trembling, and the doctor noticed it and packed him off to bed in a guest room while Lola assisted with Hermy and Pat helped her father up the stairs . . . Now it was over, and they were both asleep, and Lola had locked herself in, and Dr. Willoughby had gone home, sagging.
“I want to talk to you two,” said Mr. Queen.
Carter was still there. He had been a bed of rock for Hermy this night. She had actually clung to him while she wept, and Mr. Queen thought this, too, was strange. And then he thought: No, this is the rock, the last rock, and Hermy clings. If she lets go, she drowns, they all drown. That is how she must feel.
And he repeated: “I want to talk to you two.”
Pat was suspended between worlds. She had been sitting beside Ellery on the porch, waiting for Carter Bradford to go home. Limply and far away. And now Carter had come out of the house, fumbling with his disreputable hat and fishing for some graceful way to negotiate the few steps of the porch and reach the haven of night shadows beyond, on the lawn.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can have to say that I’d want to hear,” said Carter huskily; but he made no further move to leave the porch.
“Ellery¯don’t,” said Pat, taking his hand in the gloom.
Ellery squeezed the cold young flesh. ”I’ve got to. This man thinks he’s a martyr. You think you’re being a heroine in some Byronic tragedy. You’re both fools, and that’s the truth.”
“Good night!” said Carter Bradford.
“Ellery!” Pat wailed.
“I’ve been here much too long already, Pat. Now there’s nothing to keep me¯nothing at all.”
“Nothing . . . at all?”
“Spare me your tender farewells,” snapped Cart. Then he laughed sheepishly and sat down on the step near them. ”Don’t pay any attention to me, Queen. I’m in a fog these days. Sometimes I think I must be pretty much of a drip.”
Pat gaped at him. ”Cart¯you? Being humble?”
“I’ve grown up a bit these past few months,” mumbled Cart.
“There’s been a heap of growing up around here these past few months,” said Mr. Queen mildly. ”How about you two being sensible and proving it?”
Pat took her hand away. ”Please, Ellery¯”
“I know I’m meddling, and the lot of the meddler is hard,” sighed Mr. Queen. ”But just the same, how about it?”
“I thought you were in love with her,” said Cart gruffly.
“I am.”
“Ellery!” cried Pat. ”You neveronce¯”
“I’ll be in love with that funny face of yours as long as I live,” said Mr. Queen wistfully. ”It’s a lovely funny face. But the trouble is, Pat, that you’re not in love with me.”
Pat stumbled over a word, then decided to say nothing.
“You’re in love with Cart.”
Pat sprang from the porch chair. ”What if I was! Or am! People don’t forget hurts and burns!”
“Oh, but they do,” said Mr. Queen. ”People are more forgetful than you’d think. Also, they have better sense than we sometimes give them credit for. Emulate them.”
“It’s impossible,” said Pat tightly. ”This is no time for silliness, anyway. You don’t seem to realize what’s happened to us in this town. We’re pariahs. We’ve got a whole new battle on our hands to rehabilitate ourselves. And it’s just Lola and me now to help Pop and Muth hold their heads up again. I’m not going to run out on them now, when they need me most.”
“I’d help you, Pat,” said Cart inaudibly.
“Thanks! We’ll do it on our own. Is that all, Mr. Queen?”
“There’s no hurry,” murmured Mr. Queen.
Pat stood there for a moment, then she said good-night in an angry voice and went into the house. The door huffed. Ellery and Carter sat in silence for some time.
“Queen,” said Cart at last.
“Yes, Bradford?”
“This isn’t over, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I have the most peculiar feeling you know something I don’t.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Queen. Then he said: “Really?”
Carter slapped his hat against his thighs. ”I won’t deny I’ve been pigheaded. Jim’s death has done something to me, though. I don’t know why it should, because it hasn’t changed the facts one iota. He’s still the only one who could have poisoned Nora’s cocktail, and he’s still the only one who had any conceivable motive to want her to die. And yet . . . I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Since when?” asked Ellery in a peculiar tone.
“Since the report came in that he was found dead.”
“Why should that make a difference?”
Carter put his head between his hands. ”Because there’s every reason to believe the car he was driving didn’t go through that rail into the ravine by accident.”
“I see,” said Ellery.
“I didn’t want to tell that to the Wrights. But Dakin and I both think Jim drove that car off the road deliberately.”
Mr. Queen said nothing.
“And somehow that made me think¯don’t know why it should have¯Well, I began to wonder. Queen!” Carter jumped up. ”For God’s sake, tell me if you know! I won’t sleep until I’m sure. Did Jim Haight commit that murder?”
“No.”
Carter stared at him. ”Then who did?” he asked hoarsely.
Mr. Queen rose, too. ”I shan’t tell you.”
“Then you do know!”
“Yes,” sighed Ellery.
“But Queen, you can’t¯”
“Oh, but I can. Don’t think it’s easy for me. My whole training rebels against this sort of¯well, connivance. But I like these people. They’re nice people, and they’ve been through too much. I shouldn’t want to hurt them anymore. Let it go. The hell with it.”
“But you can tell me, Queen!” implored Cart.
“No. You’re not sure of yourself; not yet, Bradford. You’re rather a nice chap. But the growing-up process¯it’s been retarded.” Ellery shook his head. ”The best thing you can do is forget it and get Patty to marry you. She’s crazy in love with you.”
Carter grasped Ellery’s arm so powerfully that Ellery winced. ”But you’ve got to tell me!” he cried. ”How could I . . . knowing that anyone . . . any one of them . . . might be . . . ?”
Mr. Queen frowned in the darkness.
“Tell you what I’ll do with you, Cart,” he said at last. ”You help these people get back to normal in Wrightsville. You chase Patty Wright off her feet. Wear her down.
“But if you’re not successful, if you feel you’re not making any headway, wire me. I’m going back home. Send me a wire in New York, and I’ll come back. And maybe what I’ll have to say to you and Patty will solve your problem.”
“Thanks,” said Carter Bradford hoarsely.
“I don’t know that it will,” sighed Mr. Queen. ”But who can tell? This has been the oddest case of mixed-up people, emotions, and events I’ve ever run across. Good-bye, Bradford.”
Chapter 29
The Return of Ellery Queen
This, thought Mr. Ellery Queen as he stood on the station platform, makes me an admiral all over again. The second voyage of Columbus . . .
He glanced moodily at the station sign. The tail of the train that had brought him from New York was just disappearing around the curve at Wrightsville Junction three miles down the line. He could have sworn that the two small boys swinging their dirty legs on the hand truck under the eaves of the station were the same boys he had seen¯in another century!¯on his first arrival in Wrightsville.
Gabby Warrum, the station agent, strolled out to stare at him. Ellery waved and made hastily for Ed Hotchkiss’s cab, drawn up on the gravel.
As Ed drove him “uptown,” Ellery’s hand tightened in his pocket about the telegram he had received the night before. It was from Carter Bradford, and it said simply: come, please.
* * *
He had not been away long¯a matter of three weeks or so¯but just the same it seemed to him that Wrightsville had changed. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that Wrightsville had changed back. It was the old Wrightsville again, the town he had come into so hopefully the previous August, nine months ago. It had the same air of unhurried peace this lovely Sunday afternoon. Even the people seemed the old people, not the maddened horde of January and February and March and April.
Mr. Queen made a telephone call from the Hollis Hotel, then had Ed Hotchkiss drive him up the Hill. It was late afternoon, and the birds were whizzing and chirping at a great rate around the old Wright house. He paid Ed off, watched the cab chug down the Hill, and then strolled up the walk.
The little house next door¯the house of Nora and Jim¯was shuttered up; it looked opaque and ugly in its blindness. Mr. Queen felt a tremor in his spine. That was a house to avoid.
He hesitated at the front steps of the big house and listened. There were voices from the rear gardens. So he went around, walking on the grass.
He paused in the shadow of the oleander bush, where he could see them without being seen.
The sun was bright on Hermy, joggling a brand-new baby carriage in an extremely critical way. John F. was grinning, and Lola and Pat were making serious remarks about professional grandmothers and how about giving a couple of aunts a chance to practice, for goodn
ess’ sake? The baby would be home from the hospital in just a couple of weeks!
Mr. Queen watched, unobserved, for a long time. His face was very grave. Once he half turned away, as if he meant to flee once and for all. But then he saw Patricia Wright’s face again and how it had grown older and thinner since last he had seen it, and so he sighed and set about making an end of things. After five minutes of delicate reconnaissance he managed to catch Pat’s eye while the others were occupied¯caught her eye and put his finger to his lips, shaking his head in warning.
Pat said something casual to her family and strolled toward him. He backed off, and then she came around the corner of the house and flew into his arms.
“Ellery! Darling! Oh, I’m so glad to see you! When did you come? What’s the mystery for? Oh, you bug¯I am glad!” She kissed him and held him close, and for a moment her face was the gay young face he had remembered.
He let her sprinkle his shoulder, and then he took her by the hand and drew her toward the front of the house. ”That’s your convertible at the curb, isn’t it? Let’s go for a ride.”
“But Ellery, Pop and Muth and Lola¯they’ll be heartbroken if you don’t¯”
“I don’t want to disturb them now, Patty. They look really happy, getting ready for the baby. How is she, by the way?” Ellery drove Pat’s car down the Hill.
“Oh, wonderful. Such a clever little thing! And do you know? She looks just like¯” Pat stopped. Then she said quietly: “Just like Nora.”
“Does she? Then she must be a beautiful young lady indeed.”
“Oh, she is! And I’ll swear she knows Muth! Really, I mean it. We can’t wait for her to come home from the hospital. Of course, Mother won’t let any of us touch little Nora¯that’s her name, you know¯when we visit her¯we’re there practically all the time! except that I sneak over there alone once in a while when I’m not supposed to . . . Little Nora is going to have Nora’s old bedroom¯ought to see how we’ve fixed it up, with ivory furniture and gewgaws and big teddy bears and special nursery wallpaper and all. Anyway, the little atom and I have secrets . . . Well, we do! . . . Of course, she’s out of the incubator . . . and she gurgles at me and hangs on to my hand for dear life and squeezes. She’s so fat, Ellery, you’d laugh!”