by Otto Penzler
“Dr. Reinach was just apologizing,” said Thorne casually, “for this Aunt Sarah of Miss Mayhew’s—Mrs. Fell, Sylvester Mayhew’s sister. The excitement of anticipating her niece’s arrival seems to have been a bit too much for her.”
“Indeed,” said Ellery, sitting down and planting his feet on the nearest firedog.
“Fact is,” said the fat man, “my poor half sister is cracked. The family paranoia. She’s off-balance; not violent, you know, but it’s wise to humor her. She isn’t normal, and for Alice to see her—”
“Paranoia,” said Ellery. “An unfortunate family, it seems. Your half brother Sylvester’s weakness seems to have expressed itself in rubbish and solitude. What’s Mrs. Fell’s delusion?”
“Common enough—she thinks her daughter is still alive. As a matter of fact, poor Olivia was killed in an automobile accident three years ago. It shocked Sarah’s maternal instinct out of plumb. Sarah’s been looking forward to seeing Alice, her brother’s daughter, and it may prove awkward. Never can tell how a diseased mind will react to an unusual situation.”
“For that matter,” drawled Ellery, “I should have said the same remark might be made about any mind, diseased or not.”
Dr. Reinach laughed. Thorne said, “This Keith boy.”
The fat man set his glass down slowly. “Drink, Queen.”
“No, thank you.”
“This Keith boy,” said Thorne again.
“Eh? Oh, Nick. Yes, Thorne? What about him?”
The lawyer shrugged. Dr. Reinach picked up his glass again. “Am I imagining things, or is there the vaguest hint of hostility in the circumambient ether?”
“Reinach—” began Thorne harshly.
“Don’t worry about Keith, Thorne. We let him pretty much alone. He’s sour on the world, which demonstrates his good sense; but I’m afraid he’s unlike me in that he hasn’t the emotional buoyancy to rise above his wisdom. You’ll probably find him antisocial.… Ah, there you are, my dear! Lovely, lovely.”
Alice was wearing a different gown, a simple unfrilled frock, and she had freshened up. There was color in her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with a light and tinge they had not had before. Seeing her for the first time without her hat and coat, Ellery thought she looked different, as all women contrive to look different divested of their outer clothing and refurbished by the mysterious activities which go on behind the closed doors of feminine dressing-rooms. Apparently the ministrations of another woman, too, had cheered her; there were still rings under her eyes, but her smile was more cheerful.
“Thank you, Uncle Herbert.” Her voice was slightly husky. “But I do think I’ve caught a nasty cold.”
“Whisky and hot lemonade,” said the fat man promptly. “Eat lightly and go to bed early.”
“To tell the truth, I’m famished.”
“Then eat as much as you like. I’m one hell of a physician, as no doubt you’ve already detected. Shall we go in to dinner?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Reinach in a frightened voice. “We shan’t wait for Sarah, or Nicholas.”
Alice’s eyes dulled a little. Then she sighed and took the fat man’s arm and they all trooped into the dining-room.
Dinner was a failure. Dr. Reinach divided his energies between gargantuan inroads on the viands and copious drinking. Mrs. Reinach donned an apron and served, scarcely touching her own food in her haste to prepare the next course and clear the plates; apparently the household employed no domestic. Alice gradually lost her color, the old strained look reappearing on her face; occasionally she cleared her throat. The oil lamp on the table flickered badly, and every mouthful Ellery swallowed was flavored with the taste of oil. Besides, the pièce de résistance was curried lamb: if there was one dish he detested, it was lamb; and if there was one culinary style that sickened him, it was curry. Thorne ate stolidly, not raising his eyes from his plate.
As they returned to the living-room the old lawyer managed to drop behind. He whispered to Alice, “Is everything all right? Are you?”
“I’m a little scarish, I think,” she said quietly. “Mr. Thorne, please don’t think me a child, but there’s something so strange about—everything. I wish now I hadn’t come.”
“I know,” muttered Thorne. “And yet it was necessary, quite necessary. If there was any way to spare you this, I should have taken it. But you obviously couldn’t stay in that horrible hole next door—”
“Oh, no.” She shuddered.
“And there isn’t a hotel for miles and miles. Miss Mayhew, have any of these people—”
“No, no. It’s just that they’re so strange to me. I suppose it’s my imagination and this cold. Would you greatly mind if I went to bed? Tomorrow will be time enough to talk.”
Thorne patted her hand. She smiled gratefully, murmured an apology, kissed Dr. Reinach’s cheek, and went upstairs with Mrs. Reinach again.
They had just settled themselves before the fire again and were lighting cigarettes when feet stamped somewhere at the rear of the house.
“Must be Nick,” wheezed the doctor. “Now where’s he been?”
The gigantic young man appeared in the living-room archway, glowering. His boots were soggy with wet. He growled, “Hello,” in his surly manner and went to the fire to toast his big reddened hands. He paid no attention whatever to Thorne, although he glanced once, swiftly, at Ellery in passing.
“Where’ve you been, Nick? Go in and have your dinner.”
“I ate before you came.”
“What’s been keeping you?”
“I’ve been hauling firewood. Something you didn’t think of doing.” Keith’s tone was truculent, but Ellery noticed that his hands were shaking. Damnably odd! His manner was noticeably not that of a servant, and yet he was apparently employed in a menial capacity. “It’s snowing.”
“Snowing?” They crowded to the front windows. The night was moonless; big fat snowflakes were sliding down the panes.
“Ah, snow,” sighed Dr. Reinach; and for all the sigh there was something in his tone that made the nape of Ellery’s neck prickle. “ ‘The whited air hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, and veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.’ ”
“You’re quite the countryman, Doctor,” said Ellery.
“I like Nature in her more turbulent moods. Spring is for milksops. Winter brings out the fundamental iron.” The doctor slipped his arm about Keith’s broad shoulders. “Smile, Nick. Isn’t God in His heaven?”
Keith flung the arm off without replying.
“Oh, you haven’t met Mr. Queen. Queen, this is Nick Keith. You know Mr. Thorne already.” Keith nodded shortly. “Come, come, my boy, buck up. You’re too emotional, that’s the trouble with you. Let’s all have a drink. The disease of nervousness is infectious.”
Nerves! thought Ellery grimly. His nostrils were pinched, sniffing the little mysteries in the air. They tantalized him. Thorne was tied up in knots, as if he had cramps; the veins at his temples were pale blue swollen cords and there was sweat on his forehead. Above their heads the house was soundless.
Dr. Reinach went to the sideboard and began hauling out bottles—gin, bitters, rye, vermouth. He busied himself mixing drinks, talking incessantly. There was a purr in his hoarse undertones, a vibration of pure excitement. What in Satan’s name, thought Ellery in a sort of agony, was going on here?
Keith passed the cocktails around, and Ellery’s eyes warned Thorne. Thorne nodded slightly; they had two drinks apiece and refused more. Keith drank doggedly, as if he were anxious to forget something.
“Now that’s better,” said Dr. Reinach, settling his bulk into an easy-chair. “With the women out of the way and a fire and liquor, life becomes almost endurable.”
“I’m afraid,” said Thorne, “that I shall prove an unpleasant influence, Doctor. I’m going to make it unendurable.”
Dr. Reinach blinked. “Well, now,” he said. “Well, now.” He pushed the brandy decanter carefully out of the way of his elbow and folded his
pudgy paws on his stomach. His purple little eyes shone.
Thorne went to the fire and stood looking down at the flames, his back to them. “I’m here in Miss Mayhew’s interests, Dr. Reinach,” he said, without turning. “In her interests alone. Sylvester Mayhew died last week very suddenly. Died while waiting to see the daughter whom he hadn’t seen since his divorce from her mother almost twenty years ago.”
“Factually exact,” rumbled the doctor, without stirring.
Thorne spun about. “Dr. Reinach, you acted as Mayhew’s physician for over a year before his death. What was the matter with him?”
“A variety of things. Nothing extraordinary. He died of cerebral hemorrhage.”
“So your certificate claimed.” The lawyer leaned forward. “I’m not entirely convinced,” he said slowly, “that your certificate told the truth.”
The doctor stared at him for an instant, then he slapped his bulging thigh. “Splendid!” he roared. “Splendid! A man after my own heart. Thorne, for all your desiccated exterior you have juicy potentialities.” He turned on Ellery, beaming, “You heard that, Mr. Queen? Your friend openly accuses me of murder. This is becoming quite exhilarating. So! Old Reinach’s a fratricide. What do you think of that, Nick? Your patron accused of cold-blooded murder. Dear, dear.”
“That’s ridiculous, Mr. Thorne,” growled Nick Keith. “You don’t believe it yourself.”
The lawyer’s gaunt cheeks sucked in. “Whether I believe it or not is immaterial. The possibility exists. But I’m more concerned with Alice Mayhew’s interests at the moment than with a possible homicide. Sylvester Mayhew is dead, no matter by what agency—divine or human; but Alice Mayhew is very much alive.”
“And so?” asked Reinach softly.
“And so I say,” muttered Thorne, “it’s damnably queer her father should have died when he did. Damnably.”
For a long moment there was silence. Keith put his elbows on his knees and stared into the flames, his shaggy boyish hair over his eyes. Dr. Reinach sipped brandy with enjoyment.
Then he set his glass down and said with a sigh, “Life is too short, gentlemen, to waste in cautious skirmishings. Let us proceed without feinting movements to the major engagement. Nick Keith is in my confidence and we may speak freely before him.” The young man did not move. “Mr. Queen, you’re very much in the dark, aren’t you?” went on the fat man with a bland smile.
Ellery did not move, either. “And how did you know that?”
Reinach kept smiling. “Pshaw. Thorne hadn’t left the Black House since Sylvester’s funeral. Nor did he receive or send any mail during his self-imposed vigil last week. This morning he left me on the pier to telephone someone. You showed up shortly after. Since he was gone only a minute or two, it was obvious that he hadn’t had time to tell you much, if anything. Allow me to felicitate you, Mr. Queen, upon your conduct today. It’s been exemplary. An air of omniscience covering a profound and desperate ignorance.”
Ellery removed his pince-nez and began to polish their lenses. “You’re a psychologist as well as a physician, I see.”
Thorne said abruptly, “This is all beside the point.”
“No, no, it’s all very much to the point,” replied the fat man in a sad bass. “Now the canker annoying your friend, Mr. Queen—since it seems a shame to keep you on tenterhooks any longer—is roughly this: My half-brother Sylvester, God rest his troubled soul, was a miser. If he’d been able to take his gold with him to the grave—with any assurance that it would remain there—I’m sure he would have done so.”
“Gold?” asked Ellery, raising his brows.
“You may well titter, Mr. Queen. There was something medieval about Sylvester; you almost expected him to go about in a long black velvet gown muttering incantations in Latin. At any rate, unable to take his gold with him to the grave, he did the next best thing. He hid it.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Ellery. “You’ll be pulling clanking ghosts out of your hat next.”
“Hid,” beamed Dr. Reinach, “the filthy lucre in the Black House.”
“And Miss Alice Mayhew?”
“Poor child, a victim of circumstances. Sylvester never thought of her until recently, when she wrote from London that her last maternal relative had died. Wrote to friend Thorne, he of the lean and hungry eye, who had been recommended by some friend as a trustworthy lawyer. As he is, as he is! You see, Alice didn’t even know if her father was alive, let alone where he was. Thorne, good Samaritan, located us, gave Alice’s exhaustive letters and photographs to Sylvester, and has acted as liaison officer ever since. And a downright circumspect one, too, by thunder!”
“This explanation is wholly unnecessary,” said the lawyer stiffly. “Mr. Queen knows—”
“Nothing,” smiled the fat man, “to judge by the attentiveness with which he’s been following my little tale. Let’s be intelligent about this, Thorne.” He turned to Ellery again, nodding very amiably. “Now, Mr. Queen, Sylvester clutched at the thought of his new-found daughter with the pertinacity of a drowning man clutching a life-preserver. I betray no secret when I say that my half brother, in his paranoiac dotage, suspected his own family—imagine!—of having evil designs on his fortune.”
“A monstrous slander, of course.”
“Neatly put, neatly put! Well, Sylvester told Thorne in my presence that he had long since converted his fortune into specie, that he’d hidden this gold somewhere in the house next door, and that he wouldn’t reveal the hiding-place to anyone but Alice, his daughter, who was to be his sole heir. You see?”
“I see,” said Ellery.
“He died before Alice’s arrival, unfortunately. Is it any wonder, Mr. Queen, that Thorne thinks dire things of us?”
“This is fantastic,” snapped Thorne, coloring. “Naturally, in the interests of my client, I couldn’t leave the premises unguarded with that mass of gold lying about loose somewhere—”
“Naturally not,” nodded the doctor.
“If I may intrude my still, small voice,” murmured Ellery, “isn’t this a battle of giants over a mouse? The possession of gold is a clear violation of the law in this country, and has been for some years. Even if you found it, wouldn’t the government confiscate it?”
“There’s a complicated legal situation, Queen,” said Thorne; “but one which cannot come into existence before the gold is found. Therefore my efforts to—”
“And successful efforts, too.” Dr. Reinach grinned. “Do you know, Mr. Queen, your friend has slept behind locked, barred doors, with an old cutlass in his hand—one of Sylvester’s prized mementos of a grandfather who was in the Navy? It’s terribly amusing.”
“I don’t find it so,” said Thorne shortly. “If you insist on playing the buffoon—”
“And yet—to go back to this matter of your little suspicions, Thorne—have you analyzed the facts? Whom do you suspect, my dear fellow? Your humble servant? I assure you that I am spiritually an ascetic—”
“An almighty fat one!” snarled Thorne.
“—and that money, per se, means nothing to me,” went on the doctor imperturbably. “My half sister Sarah? An anile wreck living in a world of illusion, quite as antediluvian as Sylvester—they were twins, you know—who isn’t very long for this world. Then that leaves my estimable Milly and our saturnine young friend Nick. Milly? Absurd; she hasn’t had an idea, good or bad, for two decades. Nick? Ah, an outsider—we may have struck something there. Is it Nick you suspect, Thorne?” chuckled Dr. Reinach.
Keith got to his feet and glared down into the bland damp lunar countenance of the fat man. He seemed quite drunk. “You damned porker,” he said thickly.
Dr. Reinach kept smiling, but his little porcine eyes were wary. “Now, now, Nick,” he said in a soothing rumble.
It all happened very quickly. Keith lurched forward, snatched the heavy cut-glass brandy decanter, and swung it at the doctor’s head. Thorne cried out and took an instinctive forward step; but he might have spared himself the exe
rtion. Dr. Reinach jerked his head back like a fat snake and the blow missed. The violent effort pivoted Keith’s body completely about; the decanter slipped from his fingers and flew into the fireplace, crashing to pieces. The fragments splattered all over the fireplace, strewing the hearth, too; the little brandy that remained in the bottle hissed into the fire, blazing with a blue flame.
“That decanter,” said Dr. Reinach angrily, “was almost a hundred and fifty years old!”
Keith stood still, his broad back to them. They could see his shoulders heaving.
Ellery sighed with the queerest feeling. The room was shimmering as in a dream, and the whole incident seemed unreal, like a scene in a play on a stage. Were they acting? Had the scene been carefully planned? But, if so, why? What earthly purpose could they have hoped to achieve by pretending to quarrel and come to blows? The sole result had been the wanton destruction of a lovely old decanter. It didn’t make sense.
“I think,” said Ellery, struggling to his feet, “that I shall go to bed before the Evil One comes down the chimney. Thank you for an altogether extraordinary evening, gentlemen. Coming, Thorne?”
He stumbled up the stairs, followed by the lawyer, who seemed as weary as he. They separated in the cold corridor without a word to stumble to their respective bedrooms. From below came a heavy silence.
It was only as he was throwing his trousers over the footrail of his bed that Ellery recalled hazily Thorne’s whispered intention hours before to visit him that night and explain the whole fantastic business. He struggled into his dressing-gown and slippers and shuffled down the hall to Thorne’s room. But the lawyer was already in bed, snoring stertorously. Ellery dragged himself back to his room and finished undressing. He knew he would have a head the next morning; he was a notoriously poor drinker. His brain spinning, he crawled between the blankets and fell asleep almost instantly.…
He opened his eyes after a tossing, tiring sleep with the uneasy conviction that something was wrong. For a moment he was aware only of the ache in his head and the fuzzy feel of his tongue; he did not remember where he was. Then, as his glance took in the faded wallpaper, the pallid patches of sunlight on the worn blue carpet, his trousers tumbled over the footrail where he had left them the night before, memory returned; and, shivering, he consulted his wrist watch, which he had forgotten to take off on going to bed. It was five minutes to seven. He raised his head from the pillow in the frosty air of the bedroom; his nose was half-frozen. But he could detect nothing wrong; the sun looked brave if weak in his eyes; the room was quiet and exactly as he had seen it on retiring; the door was closed. He snuggled between the blankets again.