by Ellery Queen
"Dr. Voluta was wrong," said Keats. "This is not a case of ptomaine poisoning caused by spoiled fish. It's a case of arsenical poisoning caused by the introduction of arsenic into the salad. The cook put the salad in the refrigerator about 9:40 last night. Mr. Wallace came and took it to Mr. Priam around ten minutes after midnight. During that period the kitchen was empty, with only a dim light burning. During those two and a half hours someone sneaked into the kitchen and poisoned the salad."
"There can't have been any mistake," added Ellery. "There is a bowl of something for Mr. Priam in the refrigerator every night. It's a special bowl, used only for his snacks. It's even more easily identified than that— it has the name Roger in gilt lettering on it, a gift to Roger Priam from Alfred Wallace last Christmas."
"The question is," concluded Keats, "who tried to poison Mr. Priam."
He looked at the three in a friendly way.
Delia Priam, rising suddenly, murmured, "It's so incredible," and put a handkerchief to her nose.
Laurel smiled at the older woman's back. "That's the way it's seemed to me, darling," she said, "ever since Daddy's death."
"Oh, for Pete's sake, Laur," snapped Delia's son, "don't keep smiling like Lady Macbeth, or Cassandra, or whoever it was. The last thing in the world Mother and I want is a mess."
"Nobody's accusing you, Mac," said Laurel. "My only point is that now maybe you'll believe I wasn't talking through clouds of opium."
"All right!"
Delia turned to Keats. Ellery saw Keats look her over uncomfortably, but with that avidity for detail which cannot be disciplined in the case of certain women. She was superb today, all in white, with a large wooden crucifix, on a silver chain girdling her waist. No slit in this skirt; long sleeves; and the dress came up high to the neck. But her back was bare to the waist. Some Hollywood designer's idea of personalized fashion; didn't she realize how shocking it was? But then women, even the most respectable, have the wickedest innocence in this sort of thing, mused Ellery; it really wasn't fair to a hardworking police officer who wore a gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand. "Lieutenant, do the police have to come into this?" she asked.
"Ordinarily, Mrs. Priam, I could answer a question like that right off the bat." Keats's eyes shifted; he put an unlit cigaret between his lips and rolled it nervously to the corner of his mouth. A note of stubbornness crept into his voice. "But this is something I've never run into before. Your husband refuses to co-operate. He won't even discuss it with me. All he said was that he won't be caught that way again, that he could take care of himself, and that I was to pick up my hat on the way out."
Delia went to a window. Studying her back, Ellery thought that she was relieved and pleased. Keats should have kept her on a hook; he'd have to have a little skull session with Keats on the best way to handle Mrs. Priam. But the back was disturbing.
"Tell me, Mrs. Priam, is he nuts?"
"Sometimes, Lieutenant," murmured Delia without turning, "I wonder."
"I'd like to add," said Keats abruptly, "that Joe Doakes and his Ethiopian brother could have dosed that tuna. The kitchen back door wasn't locked. There's gravel back there, and woods beyond. It would have been a cinch for anyone who'd cased the household and found out about the midnight snack routine. There seems to be a tie-up with somebody from Mr. Priam's and Mr. Hill's past—somebody who's had it in for both of them for a long time. I'm not overlooking that. But I'm not overlooking the possibility that that's a lot of soda pop, too. It could be a cover-up. In fact, I think it is. I don't go for this revenge-and-slow-death business. I just wanted everybody to know that. Okay, Mr. Queen, I'm through."
He kept looking at her back.
Brother, thought Ellery with compassion.
And he said, "You may be right, Keats, but I'd like to point out a curious fact that appears in this lab report. The quantity of arsenic apparently used, says the report, was 'not sufficient to cause death.' "
"A mistake," said the detective. "It happens all the time. Either they use way too much or way too little."
"Not all the time, Lieutenant. And from what's happened so far I don't see this character—whoever he is— as the impulsive, emotional type of killer. If this is all tied up, it has a pretty careful and coldblooded brain behind it. The kind of criminal brain that doesn't make simple mistakes like underdosing. 'Not sufficient to cause death'.., that was deliberate."
"But why?" howled young Macgowan.
" 'Slow dying," Mac!" said Laurel triumphantly. "Remember?"
"Yes, it connects with the note to Hill," said Ellery in a glum tone. "Nonlethal dose. Enough to make Priam very sick, but not fatally. 'Slow and sure . . . For each pace forward a warning.' The poisoning attack is a warning to Roger Priam to follow up whatever was in the box he received the morning Hill got the dead dog. Priam's warning number one—unknown. Warning number two—poisoned tuna. Lovely problem."
"I don't admire your taste in problems," said Crowe Macgowan. "What's it mean? AU this—this stuff?"
"It means, Mac, that I'm forced to accept your assignment," replied Ellery. "And yours, Delia. I shouldn't take the time, but what else can I do?"
Delia Priam came to him and took his hands and looked into his eyes and said, with simplicity, "Thank you, Ellery. It's such a .., relief knowing it's going to be handled .., by you."
She squeezed, ever so little. It was all impersonally friendly on her part; he felt that. It had to be, with her own son present. But he wished he could control his sweat glands.
Keats lipped his unlit cigaret. Macgowan looked down at them, interested. Laurel said, "Then we're all nicely set," in a perfectly flat voice, and she walked out.
ix
THE NIGHT WAS dully, and Laurel walked briskly along the path, the beam of her flashlight bobbing before her. Her legs were bare under the long suède coat and they felt goose-pimply.
When she came to the great oak she stabbed at the green ceiling with her light.
"Mac. You awake?"
Macgowan's big face appeared in her beam.
"Laurel?" he said incredulously.
"It's not Esther Williams."
"Are you crazy, walking alone in these woods at night?" The rope ladder hurtled to her feet. "What do you want to be, a sex murder in tomorrow's paper?"
"You'd be the natural suspect." Laurel began to climb, her light streaking about the clearing.
"Wait, will you! I'll put on the flood." Macgowan disappeared. A moment later the glade was bright as a studio set "That's why I'm nervous," he grinned, reappearing. His long arm yanked her to the platform. "Boy, is this cosy. Come on in."
"Turn off the flood, Mac. I'd like some privacy."
"Sure!" He was back in a moment, lifting her off her feet. She let him carry her into his tree house and deposit her on the rollaway bed, which was made up for the night. "Wait till I turn the radio off." When he straightened up his head barely missed the ceiling. "And the light"
"Leave the light."
"Okay, okay. Aren't you cold, baby?"
"That's the only thing you haven't provided for, Mac. The California nights."
"Didn't you know I carry my own central heating? Shove over."
"Sit down, Mac."
"Huh?"
"On the floor. I want to talk to you."
"Didn't you ever hear of the language of the eyes and so forth?"
"Tonight it has to come out here." Laurel leaned back on her arms, smiling at him. He was beginning to glower. But then he folded up at her feet and put his head on her knees. Laurel moved him, drew her coat over her legs, and replaced his head.
"All right, then, let it out!"
"Mac," said Laurel, "why did you hire Ellery Queen?"
He sat still for a moment. Then he reached over to a shelf, got a cigaret, lit it, and leaned back.
"That's a hell of a question to ask a red-blooded man in a tree house at twelve o'clock at night"
"Just the same, answer it."
"What
difference does it make? You hired him, Delia hired him, everybody was doing it, so I did it too. Let's talk about something else. If we've got to talk."
"Sorry. That's my subject for tonight."
He encircled his mammoth legs, scowling through the smoke at his bare feet. "Laurel, how long have we known each other?"
"Since we were kids." She was surprised.
"Grew up together, didn't we?"
"We certainly did."
"Have I ever done anything out of line?"
"No," Laurel laughed softly, "but it's not because you haven't tried."
"Why, you little squirt, I could break you in two and stuff both halves in my pants pocket. Don't you know I've been in love with you ever since I found out where babies come from?"
"Why, Mac," murmured Laurel. "You've never said that to me before. Used that word, I mean."
"Well, I've used it," he growled. "Now let me hear your side of it."
"Say it again, Mac?"
"Love! I love you!"
"In that tone of voice?"
She found herself off the bed and on the floor, in his arms. "Damn you," he whispered, "I love you."
She stared up at him. "Mac—"
"I love you ..."
"Mac, let go of me!" She wriggled out of his arms and jumped to her feet. "I suppose," she cried, "that's the reason you hired him! Because you love me, or—or something like that. Mac, what's the reason? I've got to know!"
"Is that all you have to say to a guy who tells you he loves you?"
"The reason, Mac."
Young Macgowan rolled over on his back and belched smoke. Out of the reek his voice mumbled something ineffectual. Then it stopped. When the smoke cleared, he was lying there with his eyes shut.
"You won't tell me."
"Laur, I can't. It's got .., nothing to do with anything. Just some cockeyed thing of my own."
Laurel seated herself on the bed again. He was very long, and broad, and brown and muscular and healthy-looking. She took a Dunhill from her coat pocket and lit it with shaky fingers. But when she spoke, she sounded calm. "There are too many mysteries around here, Chesty. I know there's one about you, and where you're concerned ..."
His eyes opened.
"No, Mac, stay there. I'm not entirely a fool. There's something behind this tree house and all this learned bratwurst about the end of civilization, and it's not the hydrogen bomb. Are you just lazy? Or is it a new thrill for some of your studio girls—the ones who want life with a little extra something they can't get in a motel?" He flushed, but his mouth continued sullen. "All right, we'll let that go. Now about this love business."
She put her hand in his curly hair, gripping. He looked up at her thoroughly startled. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
"That's for thanks. You're such a beautiful man, Mac . . , you see, a girl has her secrets, too—No! Mac, no. If we ever get together, it's got to be in a clean house. On the ground. Anyway, I have no time for love now."
"No time!"
"Darling, something's happening, and it's ugly. There's never been any ugliness in my life before . . . That I can remember, that is. And he was so wonderful to me. The only way I can pay him back is by finding whoever murdered him and seeing him die. How stupid does that sound? And maybe I'm kind of bloodthirsty myself. But it's all in the world I'm interested in right now. If the law gets him, fine. But if ..."
"For God's sake!" Crowe scrambled to his feet, his face bilious. A short-nosed little automatic had materialized in Laurel's hand and it was pointing absently at his navel.
"If they don't, I'll find him myself. And when I do, Mac, I’ll shoot him as dead as that dog. If they send me to the gas chamber for it."
"Laurel, put that blamed thing back in your pocket!"
"No matter who it is." Her green, brown-flecked eyes were bright The gun did not move. "Even if it turned out to be you, Mac. Even if we were married—had a baby. If I found out it was you, Mac, I'd kill you, too."
"And I thought Roger was tough." Macgowan stared at her. "Well, if you find out it was me, it'll serve me right. But until you do—"
Laurel cried out. The gun was in his hand. He turned it over curiously.
"Nasty little beanshooter. Until you do, Red, don't let anybody take this away from you," and he dropped it politely into her pocket, picked her up, and sat down on the bed with her.
A little later Laurel was saying faintly, "Mac, I didn't come here for this."
"Surprise."
"Mac, what do you think of Ellery Queen?"
"I think he's got a case on Ma," said the giant "Do we have to talk?"
"How acute of you. I think he has, too. But that's not what I meant. I meant professionally."
"Oh, he's a nice enough guy..."
"Mac!"
"Okay, okay," He got up sullenly, dumping her. "If he's half as good as his rep—"
"That's just it. Is he?"
"Is he what? What are we talking about?" He poured himself a drink.
"Is he even half as good?"
"How should I know? You want one?"
"No. I've dropped in on him twice and phoned him I don't know how many times in the past couple of days, and he's always there. Sitting in his crow's nest, smoking and scanning the horizon."
"Land ho. It's a way of life, Laurel." Macgowan tossed if off and made a face. "That's the way these big-shot dicks work sometimes. It's all up here."
"Well, I'd like to see a little activity on the other end." Laurel jumped up suddenly. "Mac, I can't stand this doing nothing. How about you and me taking a crack at it? On our own?"
"Taking a crack at what?"
"At what he ought to be doing."
"Detecting?" The big fellow was incredulous.
"I don't care what you call it. Hunting for facts, if that sounds less movie-ish. Anything that will get somewhere."
"Red Hill, Lady Dick, and Her Muscle Man," said young Macgowan, touching the ceiling with both hands. "You know? It appeals to me."
Laurel looked up at him coldly. "I'm not gagging, Mac."
"Who's gagging? Your brain, my sinews—"
"Never mind. Good night."
"Hey!" His big hand caught her in the doorway. "Don't be so half-cocky. I'm really going birdy up here, Laurel. It's tough squatting in this tree waiting for the big boom. How would you go about it?"
She looked at him for a long time. "Mac, don't try to pull anything cute on me."
"My gosh, what would I pull on you!"
"This isn't a game, like your apeman stunt. We're not going to have any code words in Turkish or wear disguises or meet in mysterious bistros. It's going to be a lot of footwork and maybe nothing but blisters to show for it. If you understand that and still want to come in, all right. Anything else, I go it solo."
"I hope you'll put a skirt on, or at least long pants," the giant said morosely. "Where do we start?"
"We should have started on that dead dog. Long ago. Where it came from, who owned it, how it died, and all that. But now that's as cold as I am ... I'd say, Mac," said Laurel, leaning against the jamb with her hands in her pockets, "the arsenic. That's fresh, and it's something to go on. Somebody got into the kitchen over there and mixed arsenic in with Roger's tuna. Arsenic can't be too easy to get hold of. It must leave a trail of some sort."
"I never thought of that. How the dickens would you go about tracing it?"
"I've got some ideas. But there's one thing we ought to do before that. The tuna was poisoned in the house. So that's the place to start looking."
"Let's go." Macgowan reached for a dark blue sweater.
"Now?" Laurel sounded slightly dismayed. "Know a better time?"
MRS. WILLIAMS CAME in and stumbled over a chair. "Mr. Queen? You in here?"
"Present."
"Then why don't you put on a light?" She found the switch. Ellery was bunched in a corner of the sofa, feet on the picture window, looking at Hollywood. It looked like a fireworks display, popping lig
hts in all colors. "Your dinner's cold."
"Leave it on the kitchen table, Mrs. Williams. You go on home."
She sniffed. "It's that Miss Hill and the naked man, only he's got clothes on this evening."
"Why didn't you say so!" Ellery sprang from the sofa. "Laurel, Mac! Come in."
They were smiling, but Ellery thought they both looked a little peaked. Crowe Macgowan was in a respectable suit; he even wore a tie.
"Well, well, still communing with mysterious thoughts, eh, Queen? We're not interrupting anything momentous?"
"As far as I can see," said Laurel, "he hasn't moved from one spot in sixty hours. Ellery," she said abruptly, "we have some news for you."
"News? For me?"
"We've found out something."
"I wondered why Mac was dressed," said Ellery. "Here, sit down and tell me all about it. You two been on the trail?"
"There's nothing to this detective racket," said the giant, stretching his legs. "You twerps have been getting away with mayhem. Tell him, Red."
"We decided to do a little detecting on our own—"
"That sounds to me," murmured Ellery, "like the remark of a dissatisfied client."
"That's what it is." Laurel strode around smoking a cigaret. "We'd better have an understanding, Ellery. I hired you to find a killer. I didn't expect you to produce him in twenty-four hours necessarily, but I did expect something—some sign of interest, maybe even a twitch or two of activity. But what have you done? You've sat here and smoked!"
"Not a bad system, Laurel," said Ellery, reaching for a pipe. "Tve worked that way for years."
"Well, I don't care for it!"
"Am I fired?
"I didn't say that—"
"I think all the lady wants to do," said young Macgowan, "is give you a jab, Queen. She doesn't think thinking is a substitute for footwork."
"Each has its place," Ellery said amiably—"sit down, Laurel, won't you? Each has its place, and thinking's place can be very important. I'm not altogether ignorant of what's been going on, seated though I've remained. Let's see if I can't—er—think this out for you . . ." He closed his eyes. "I would say," he said after a moment, "that you two have been tracking down the arsenic with which Priam's tuna was poisoned." He opened his eyes. "Is that right so far?"