The Origin of Evil

by Ellery Queen

  "Go ahead and sneer," said the brown giant without rancor. "I promise to give you a decent burial if I can find the component parts."

  Ellery eyed the wide back for a moment. It was perfectly calm. He shrugged. Every time he came to Hollywood something fantastic happened. This was the screwiest yet. He was well out of it.

  But then he remembered that he was still in it.

  He put his hand in his pocket.

  "Laurel," he said meaningfully, "shall we go?"

  "If it's about that piece of paper I saw you find in Leander's mattress," said young Macgowan, "I wouldn't mind knowing myself what's in it"

  "It's all right, Ellery," said Laurel with an exasperated laugh. "Crowe is a lot more interested in the petty affairs of us dreamers than he lets on. And in a perverted sort of way I trust him. May I please see that note?"

  "IT ISNT THE note you saw your father take from the collar of the dog," said Ellery, eying Macgowan disapprovingly as he took a sheet of paper from his pocket. "It's a copy. The original is gone." The sheet was folded over once. He unfolded it. It was a stiff vellum paper, tinted green-gray, with an embossed green monogram.

  "Daddy's personal stationery."

  "From his night table. Where I also found the bi-colored pencil." Ellery fished an automatic pencil from his pocket. "The blue lead is snapped. The note starts in blue and ends in red. Evidently the blue ran out halfway through his copying and he finished writing with the red. So the pencil places the copying in his bedroom, too." Ellery held out the sheet "Is this your father's handwriting?"

  "Yes."

  "No doubt about it?"

  "No."

  In a rather peculiar voice, Ellery said, "All right, Laurel. Read it."

  "But it's not signed." Laurel sounded as if she wanted to punch somebody.

  "Read it."

  Macgowan knelt behind her, nuzzling her shoulder with his big chin. Laurel paid no attention to him; she read the note with a set face.

  You believed me dead. Killed, murdered. For over a score of years I have looked for you—for you and for him. And now I have found you. Can you guess my plan? You'll die. Quickly? No, very slowly. And so pay me back for my long years of searching and dreaming of revenge. Slow dying . . , unavoidable dying. For you and for him. Slow and sure—dying in mind and in body. And for each pace forward a warning .., a warning of special meaning for you—and for him. Meanings for pondering and puzzling. Here is warning number one.

  Laurel stared at the notepaper.

  "That," said Crowe Macgowan, taking the sheet, "is the unfunniest gag of the century." He frowned over it.

  "Not just that." Laurel shook her head. "Warning number one. Murder. Revenge. Special meanings . . . It—it has a long curly mustache on it. Next week Uncle Tom's Cabin." She looked around with a laugh. "Even in Hollywood."

  "Why'd the old scout take it seriously?" Crowe watched Laurel a little anxiously.

  Ellery took the sheet from him and folded it carefully. "Melodrama is a matter of atmosphere and expression. Pick up any Los Angeles newspaper and you'll find three news stories running serially, any one of which would make this one look like a work by Einstein. But they're real because they're couched in everyday terms. What makes this note incredible is not the contents. It's the wording."

  "The wording?"

  "It's painful. Actually archaic in spots. As if it were composed by someone who wears a ruff, or a tricorn. Someone who speaks a different kind of English. Or writes it. It has a .., bouquet, an archive smell. A something that would never have been put into it purely for deception, for instance . . , like the ransom note writers who deliberately misspell words and mix their tenses to give the impression of illiteracy. And yet—I don't know." Ellery slipped the note into his pocket. "It's the strangest mixture of genuineness and contrivance. I don't understand it."

  "Maybe," suggested the young man, putting his arm carelessly around Laurel's shoulders, "maybe it's the work of some psycho foreigner. It reads like somebody translating from another language."

  "Possible." Ellery sucked his lower lip. Then he shrugged. "Anyway, Laurel, there's something to go on. Are you sure you wouldn't rather discuss this—?"

  "You mean because it involves Roger?" Laurel laughed again, removing Macgowan's paw. "Mac isn't one of Roger's more ardent admirers, Ellery. It's all right."

  "What did he do now?" growled Roger Priam's stepson.

  "He said he wasn't going to be scared by any 'ghost,' Mac. Or rather roared it. And here's a clue to someone from his past and, apparently, Leander Hill's. 'For you and for him . . .* Laurel, what do you know of your father's background?"

  "Not much. He'd led an adventurous life, I think, but whenever I used to ask him questions about it— especially when I was little—he'd laugh, slap me on the bottom, and send me off to Mad'moiselle." "What about his family?" "Family?" said Laurel vaguely.

  "Brothers, sisters, uncle, cousins—family. Where did he come from? Laurel, I'm fishing. We need some facts." "I'm no help there. Daddy never talked about himself. I always felt I couldn't pry. I can't remember his ever having any contact with relatives. I don't even know if any exist."

  "When did he and Priam go into business together?" "It must have been around twenty, twenty-five years ago."

  "Before Delia and he got married," said Crowe. "Delia —that's my mother, Mr. Queen."

  "I know," said Ellery, a bit stiffly. "Had Priam and Hill known each other well before they started the jewelry business, Macgowan?"

  "I don't know." The giant put his arm about Laurel's waist.

  "I suppose they did. They must have," Laurel said in a helpless way, absently removing the arm. "I realize now how little I know about Dad's past."

  "Or I about Roger's" said Crowe, marching two fingers up Laurel's back. She wriggled and said, "Oh, stop it, Mac." He got up. "Neither of them ever talked about it." He went over to the other end of the platform and stretched out again.

  "Apparently with reason. Leander Hill and Roger Priam had a common enemy in the old days, someone they thought was dead. He says they tried to put him out of the way, and he's spent over twenty years tracking them down."

  Ellery began to walk about, avoiding Crowe Macgowan's arms.

  "Dad tried to murder somebody?" Laurel bit her thumb.

  "When you yell bloody murder, Laurel," said Ellery, "you've got to be prepared for a certain echo of nastiness. This kind of murder," he said, lighting a cigaret and placing it between her lips, "is never nice. It's usually rooted in pretty mucky soil. Priam means nothing to you, and your father is dead. Do you still want to go through with this? You're my client, you know, not Mrs. Priam. At her own suggestion."

  "Did Mother come to you?" exclaimed Macgowan.

  "Yes, but we're keeping it confidential."

  "I didn't know she cared," muttered the giant

  Ellery lit a cigaret for himself.

  Laurel was wrinkling her nose and looking a little sick.

  Ellery tossed the match overside. "Whoever composed that note is on a delayed murder spree. He wants revenge badly enough to have nursed it for over twenty years. A quick killing doesn't suit him at all. He wants the men who injured him to suffer, presumably, as he's suffered. To accomplish this he starts a private war of nerves. His strategy is all plotted. Working from the dark, he makes his first tactical move . . , the warning, the first of the 'special meanings' he promises. Number one is—of all things—a dead pooch, number two whatever was in the box to Roger Priam—I wonder what it was, by the way! You wouldn't know, Mac, would you?"

  "I wouldn't know anything about my mother's husband," replied Macgowan.

  "And he means to send other warnings with other 'gifts' which have special meanings. To Priam exclusively now—Hill foxed him by dying at once. He's a man with a fixed idea, Laurel, and an obsessive sense of injury. I really think you ought to keep out of his way. Let Priam defy him. It's his skin, and if he needs help he knows where he can apply for it."

 
; Laurel threw herself back on the platform, blowing smoke to the appliquéd sky.

  "Don't you feel you have to act like the heroine of a magazine serial?"

  Laurel did not reply.

  "Laurel, drop it. Now."

  She rolled her head. "I don't care what Daddy did. People make mistakes, even commit crimes, who are decent and nice. Sometimes events force you, or other people. I knew him—as a human being—better than anyone in creation. If he and Roger Priam got into a mess it was Roger who thought up the dirty work . . . The fact that he wasn't my real father makes it even more important. I owe him everything." She sat up suddenly. "I'm not going to stay out of this, Ellery. I can't"

  "You'll find, Queen," scowled young Macgowan in the silence that followed, "that this is a very tough number."

  "Tough she may be, my Tarzanian friend," grumbled Ellery, "but this sort of thing b a business, not an endurance contest. It takes knowhow and connections and a technique. And experience. None of which Miss Strong-heart has." He crushed his cigaret out on the platform vindictively. "Not to mention the personal danger . . . Well, I'll root around a little, Laurel. Do some checking back. It shouldn't be too much of a job to get a line on those two and find out what they were up to in the Twenties. And who got caught in the meat-grinder . . .

  You driving me back to the world of fantasy?"

  Five

  THE NEXT MORNING Ellery called the Los Angeles Police Department and asked to speak to the officer in charge of the Public Relations Department.

  "Sergeant Lordetti."

  "Sergeant, this is Ellery Queen . . . Yes, how do you do. Sergeant, I'm in town to write a Hollywood novel— oh, you've seen that . . , no, I can't make the newspapers believe it and, frankly, I've given up trying. Sergeant Lordetti, I need some expert advice for background on my book. Is there anyone in, say, the Hollywood Division who could give me a couple hours of his time? Some trouble-shooter with lots of experience in murder investigation and enough drag in the Department so I could call on him from time to time? . . . Exposé? So you fell for that, too, haha! Me, the son of a cop? No, no, Sergeant, nothing like that, believe me ... Who? . . . K-e-a-t-s. Thanks a lot ... Not at all, Sergeant. If you can make a little item out of it, you're entirely welcome."

  Ellery called the Hollywood Division on Wilcox below Sunset and asked to speak to Lieutenant Keats. Informed that Lieutenant Keats was on another phone, Ellery left his telephone number with the request that Lieutenant Keats call back as soon as he was free.

  Twenty minutes later a car drew up to his house and a big lean man in a comfortable-looking business suit got out and rang the bell, glancing around at Ellery's pint-sized garden curiously. Hiding behind a drape, Ellery decided he was not a salesman, for he carried nothing and his interest had something amused in it. Possibly a reporter, although he seemed too carefully dressed for that. He might have been a sports announcer or a veteran airline pilot off duty.

  "It's a policeman, Mr. Queen," reported Mrs. Williams nervously. "You done something?"

  "I'll keep you out of it, Mrs. Williams. Lieutenant Keats? The service staggers me. I merely left a message for you to phone back."

  "Sergeant Lordetti phoned and told me about it," said the Hollywood detective, filling the doorway. 'Thought I'd take the shortcut. No, thanks, don't drink when I'm working."

  "Working—? Oh, Mrs. Williams, close the door, will you? . . . Working, Lieutenant? But I explained to Lordetti—"

  "He told me." Keats placed his hat neatly on the chartreuse chair. "You want expert advice for a mystery novel. Such as what, Mr. Queen? How a homicide is reported in Los Angeles? That was for the benefit of the Mirror and News. What's really on your mind?"

  Ellery stared. Then they both grinned, shook hands, and sat down like old friends.

  Keats was a sandy-haired man of thirty-eight or forty with clear, rather distant gray eyes below reddish brows. His hands were big and well-kept, with a reliable look to them; there was a gold band on the fourth finger of the left. His eyes were intelligent and his jaw had been developed by adversity. His manner was slightly standoffish. A smart cop, Ellery decided, and a rugged one.

  "Let me light that for you, Lieutenant."

  "The nail?" Keats laughed, taking a shredded cigaret from between his lips. It was unlit. "I'm a dry smoker, Mr. Queen. Given up smoking." He put the ruin on an ashtray and fingered a fresh cigaret, settling back. "Some case you're interested in? Something you don't want to get around?"

  "It came my way yesterday morning. Do you know anything about the death of a wholesale jeweler named Leander Hill?"

  "So she got to you." Keats lipped the unlit cigaret. "It passed through our Division. The girl made a pest of herself. Something about a dead dog and a note that scared her father to death. But no note. An awfully fancy yarn. More in your line than ours."

  Ellery handed Keats the sheet of Leander Hill's stationery.

  Keats read it slowly. Then he examined the notepaper, front and back.

  "That's Hill's handwriting, by the way. Obviously a copy he made. I found it in a slit in his mattress."

  "Where's the original of this, Mr. Queen?"

  "Probably destroyed."

  "Even if this were the McCoy." Keats put the sheet down. "There's nothing here that legally connects Hill's death with a murder plot. Of course, the revenge business ..."

  "I know, Lieutenant. It's the kind of case that gives you fellows a hard ache. Every indication of a psycho, and a possible victim who won't co-operate."

  "Who's that?"

  "The 'him' of the note." Ellery told Keats about Roger Priam's mysterious box, and of what Priam had let slip during Ellery's visit. "There's something more than a gangrenous imagination behind this, Lieutenant. Even though no one's going to get anywhere with Priam, still .., it ought to be looked into, don't you agree?"

  The detective pulled at his unlit cigaret.

  "I'm not sure I want any part of it myself," Ellery said, glancing at his typewriter and thinking of Delia Priam. "I'd like a little more to go on before I commit myself. It seemed to me that if we could find something in Hill's past, and Priam's, that takes this note out of the ordinary crackpot class ..."

  "On the q.t.?"

  "Yes. Could you swing it?"

  For a moment Keats did not reply. He picked up the note and read it over again.

  "I'd like to have this."

  "Of course. But I want it back."

  "I'll have it photostated. Tell you what I'll do, Mr. Queen." Lieutenant Keats rose. "I'll talk to the Chief and if he thinks it's worth my time, I'll see what I can dig up."

  "Oh, Keats."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "While you're digging . . . Do a little spadework on a man who calls himself Alfred Wallace. Roger Priam's secretary-general."

  DELIA PRIAM PHONED that afternoon. "I am surprised you're in."

  "Where did you think I'd be, Mrs. Priam?" The moment he heard her throaty purr his blood began stewing. Damn her, she was like the first cocktail after a hard day.

  "Out detecting, or whatever it is detectives do."

  "I haven't taken the case." He was careful to keep his voice good-humored. "I haven't made up my mind."

  "You're angry with me about yesterday."

  "Angry? Mrs. Priam!"

  "Sorry. I thought you were." Oh, were you? "I'm afraid I'm allergic to messes. I usually take the line of least resistance."

  "In everything?"

  "Give me an example." Her laugh was soft.

  He wanted to say, I'd be glad to specify if you'd drop in on me, say, this afternoon. Instead, he said innocuously, "Who's questioning whom?"

  "You're such a careful man, Mr. Queen."

  "Well, I haven't taken the case—yet, Mrs. Priam."

  Do you suppose I could help you make up your mind?"

  There's the nibble. Reel 'er in ...

  "You know, Mrs. Priam, that might be a perilous offer ... Mrs. Priam? ... Hello!"

  She said in a
low voice, quickly, "I must stop," and the line went dead.

  Ellery hung up perspiring. He was so annoyed with himself that he went upstairs and took a shower.

  LAUREL HILL DROPPED in on him twice in the next twenty-four hours. The first time she was "just passing by" and thought she would report that nothing was happening, nothing at all. Priam wouldn't see her and as far as she could tell he was being his old bullying, beastly self. Delia had tried to pump her about Ellery and what he was doing, and as a matter of fact she couldn't help wondering herself if...

  Ellery's glance kept going to his typewriter and after a few moments Laurel left abruptly.

  She was back the next morning, recklessly hostile.

  "Are you taking this case, or aren't you?"

  "I don't know, Laurel."

  "I've talked to my lawyers. The estate isn't settled, but I can get the money together to give you a retainer of five thousand dollars."

  "It isn't the money, Laurel."

  "If you don't want to bother, say so and Til get someone else."

  "That's always the alternative, of course."

  "But you're just sitting here!"

  "I'm making a few preliminary inquiries," he said patiently.

  "From this—this ivory tower?"

  "Stucco. What I'll do, Laurel, depends entirely on what I find out."

  "You've sold out to Delia, that's what you've done," Laurel cried. "She doesn't really want this investigated at all. She only followed me the other day to see what I was up to—the rest was malarkey! She wants Roger murdered! And that's all right with me, you understand—all I'm interested in is the case of Leander Hill. But if Delia's standing in the way—"

  "You're being nineteen, Laurel." He tried not to let his anger show.

  "I'll admit I can't offer you what she can—"

  "Delia Priam hasn't offered me a thing, Laurel. We haven't even discussed my fee."

  "And I don't mean money!" She was close to tears.

  "Now you're hysterical." His voice came out sharp, not what he intended at all. "Have a little patience, Laurel. Right now there's nothing to do but wait."