by Ellery Queen
“This has been the greatest week of my life,” he said.
“Mine, too.”
“I hope you don’t mind. But I got you a present.”
He handed her a sterling-silver necklace.
“Mike, it’s beautiful,” she said. “But I can’t take something like this from you. It’s much too expensive.”
“Annie, I’ve been crazy about restoring cars for about four years. Nothing else mattered to me. Before that it was motorcycles. Rebuilding them, running with a pack, doing crazy stunts, even getting myself in trouble with the law. Before motorcycles it was lifting weights until my muscles were stiff.
“You see, Annie, I’ve always had to have some obsession to lose myself in. Only now I’ve been stopped in my tracks. You’ve made me realize that another person can be ten times more important than all the rest of that stuff. This necklace cost me the two hundred dollars you turned down for the car.” He added, with embarrassment, “It’s the first time I ever wanted to give something to another person.”
He gently slipped the silver chain around her neck.
“You were right in not trusting me,” he said. “I lied about why I wanted that wreck. Truth is, it’s got parts for my Cord that I gave up hope of ever finding.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Figured you’d raise the price if you knew how much I needed the parts. Pretty small view of people, I guess.”
Nobody said anything for a while. Mike watched the sun beginning to go down behind the mountains. And he knew Annie was looking at him.
“Would you do me a favor?” she said quietly. “Drive us to the mine?”
Mike could barely control his excitement as he raced along the highway. In his mind he composed a letter to the Sassetta Society. Gentlemen, I have been fortunate enough to acquire the last of the Sassettas. Since it requires extensive rebuilding, any guidance that my fellow owners. . .Naturally I would be honored if your Society would consider my application for membership.
When they arrived, Annie led him through the dark to the cabin. Inside she lit none of the lamps, but sat down on the moonlit bed and looked up at Mike.
“I don’t know if you’re still interested,” she said softly. “But. . .well, it’s my first time wanting to give a person something, too.”
Afterward, looking through the window at the mine site, Mike pointed to the Sassetta.
“The crazy things that bring people together,” he said.
“What about the old man with the ’25 Chevy? Was that the truth?”
“Sure. But he’ll find a steering wheel somewhere.”
“Take it. And all the other parts you need for yourself. I’ll manage Uncle Oscar.”
“Not practical. It’d need a chestful of special tools. Frankly, it’d be simpler for me to haul away the whole mess.”
“I wish I could let you, Mike. But it would upset him too much. Last month some hunter took a few pot shots at the side of the crusher and Uncle Oscar had his own rifle out ready to kill the man.”
“Suppose one weekend the car just wasn’t here.”
“I can’t do it to him. Please understand.”
“He’s crazy! Why do you spend your life worrying about him?”
“You said you didn’t care about the parts any more.”
“I was thinking about you!” he snapped back, trying to salvage his position. And then he said the only words that would get him the car. “I want you to marry me. Right away.”
Annie finally agreed that a rest home was the best place for Uncle Oscar, though she hated the thought of it. He had refused to come to Los Angeles with them, so there was no alternative.
The ecstatic days of the honeymoon flowed into weeks of quieter intimacy, as Mike came to know every inch of the Sassetta in his garage, and discovered the wonderful little surprises old Benito had designed into it.
The Cord had been sold, of course. The money came in handy. Mike had impetuously sworn to restore the garish junkheap from Mother Lode Mountain no matter what the cost. Because, he told Annie, it had brought him the most important thing in his life.
He passed most evenings and weekends in his garage. Sometimes in the early morning hours he’d just flop down on the cot and sleep there. He spent hundreds of hours overseeing the labors of mechanics doing work beyond his skills. With the aid of the Sassetta Society his letters pursued parts and materials in Asia, Europe, the United States, and South America.
Of course Annie was upset by his preoccupation, and there were some arguments. She always came back worse from her visits to Uncle Oscar, who was deteriorating in both mind and body. Mike steered her into redecorating the house. He would occasionally begrudge an hour and some money to quiet her with dinner at a restaurant, and he promised her all his attention once his labor of love was finished.
As the months passed he felt like some mad juggler. Slaving away at the car, racing back to calm Annie in her latest complaint about loneliness or money, then returning to the garage as soon as he dared.
But the car was slowly being resurrected. In Milan, colors were being mixed using the same pigments Benito had insisted on. The engine ran smoothly, rebuilt from scratch. The seats had been elegantly upholstered by a genius whom Mike had discovered in Santa Monica. The sheet metal was flawless. Everything chrome had been replated. Wood for the interior appointments arrived from India, and after days of experimentation Mike hit upon the exact mixture of stain to duplicate the original finish.
One afternoon when he came home from the office Annie announced there had been a phone call for him that morning. The tone of her voice signaled a bad argument.
“His name was Sir George Walliston. President of the Sassetta Society. He’s in Los Angeles and he wanted to know if it would be convenient for him to see the car.”
She was controlling hysteria. As on the day that Uncle Oscar had died.
“I was going to surprise you about that, Annie. It was only last month I found out—”
“You wrote to him the week we got married. We talked a long time. He was here.”
“Okay, so the car is worth more than I let on. By the time we got involved I was too ashamed to tell you the truth.”
“You are a damned liar, Mike. You married me for that car!”
“Where can I reach Sir George?”
“You don’t need me. You didn’t want me! But you didn’t know any other way to get that machine!”
“I asked you where Sir George Walliston is.”
“Uncle Oscar died because you had to get your hands on that blasted thing!”
She screamed her hatred. Mike shook Annie by the shoulders, demanding an answer. Then he slapped her and she spat out the name of the hotel.
Sir George told him over the phone that he would love to have Mike show him the car in detail, but he was leaving soon. Would Mike have a drink with him at the airport?
Sir George was a lean well-tailored old man reeking of wealth. Mike could barely understand his accent. “Actually? You supervised the entire restoration yourself? Superbly done. . .If you’re ever in London I hope you’ll give me your opinion on a few sticky problems I’ve encountered with my own Sassetta.”
The Englishman offered Mike $35,000 for the car. No? Well, at least he hoped Mike would give him a chance to bid on it if he ever decided to sell the Sassetta.
Never before had Mike felt so exhilarated. On returning home he headed straight for the garage. Not to work, but simply to be with his automobile and savor his joy more fully.
He entered and switched on the light.
Every piece of sheet metal on the car was dented and bent out of shape. The metal was split at the welded seams. The paint was scraped and gouged. Two doors leaned back crazily, wrenched past their limits. The leather seats were slashed. And everywhere—on the hood, on the carpeting—were scattered flakes of paint and splinters of glass.
Oil was on the garage floor, and worse than that, there was a stink of burnt oil, the odor that every
mechanic recognizes instantly. It comes when a dry engine has been kept running, its insides heating and expanding, until the whole thing literally welds itself into a single hunk of iron.
The car was collapsed on one corner, where the wooden spokes of a wheel had been shattered by the sledge-hammer that still lay there. Mike dropped to his knees and began caressing the wheel, and dumbly tried fitting the shattered spokes into their places between the rim and the hub. This perfect wheel that 50 years ago a superb craftsman had spent weeks constructing.
He rose and went out to look for her. The front door was locked from inside. He got around back somehow—running and screaming—in time to see her hurry out with a suitcase. She dropped it, and he threw himself at her. And finally he was using the sledge-hammer. . .
The garage today bears no marks of Mike’s obsession with antique automobiles, nor of the destruction that was wrought there. Its walls are whitewashed clean. Each day when he returns from the office Mike enters, wrapped against the air-conditioned chill, and attends to Annie with a love he never knew was in him.
Now all her scars are gone. Her arms and legs seem ready to move, as if bone had never been shattered or muscle crushed. Annie’s skin looks as healthy and smooth as he remembers it, although he is not yet completely satisfied.
Mike ponders her nose, which he has been working on these past weeks. The slight bump on her bridge disturbs him. It was there before, of course, but perhaps it ought to be removed. He ponders the question for a while. No, Annie was born with that slight bump in her nose. It was original equipment.
Well, then, she’s almost finished. He steps back to admire her. Yes, not a bad job. For a beginner.
Edward D. Hoch
The Theft of the Satin Jury
In this adventure Nick Velvet, the master crook, steals 15 people—the 12 jurors, the one alternate juror, and the two court attendants in a bizarre trial—a trial for murder in which a duel is fought in a reproduction of the famous yew-hedged maze at Hampton Court Palace. And once again Nick Velvet must prove himself a crackerjack criminologist as well as a crackerjack criminal—he has to double as a detective in order to succeed as a thief. . .
Criminal-Detective: NICK VELVET
Nick Velvet had paid little attention to the Satin case during its run of newspaper publicity the previous winter. He’d been involved in other things, and a murder case—even one with as many bizarre angles as the Satin shooting—could divert him for only a limited time. It was a winter of discontent for Nick, with a journey halfway around the world to Australia that had gone sour when his client inconveniently died of a heart attack before arranging to pay the balance of Nick’s fee.
The spring had been better, though, and by the time the Satin case came to trial in early June, Nick’s good spirits had returned. He even took time to listen one evening while Gloria ran over the events of the case as they had been reported in the press. “Can you imagine, Nicky? This woman Helen Satin claims she killed her husband’s lover in a duel! It’s like something out of the Middle Ages!”
“I don’t think women fought duels in the Middle Ages,” Nick observed. “Just men. And duels reached the peak of their popularity in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries—after the Middle Ages.”
“You know everything, don’t you, Nicky?”
He only smiled. “Sometime I’ll tell you about the basic code duello for the pistol duel, adopted at Tipperary, in Ireland, about 1775. After the passing of the classic sword duel, pistol duels became quite popular in England, Ireland, and France—and even in America. Of course German students in this century revived the classic saber duel.”
“But Nicky—in the 1970’s here in America?”
“I’ll admit the present circumstances are unusual, which I guess is why the police questioned her story in the first place. Gregory Satin hardly seems the sort of man that women fight duels over. Anyway, it’ll be an interesting trial.”
Two weeks later, Nick Velvet was to find out exactly how interesting. On the day the prosecution opened its case, Nick found himself having lunch with a conservatively dressed businessman named Adam Whipple.
“Of course you’re familiar with the Satin case,” Whipple said over cocktails, coming right to the point.
“I’ve read something about it. I suppose every newspaper in the country has been following it.”
“Then you know the trial has begun.”
“Yes.”
Whipple sipped his drink. “I understand, Mr. Velvet, that you steal things,” he said softly.
Nick glanced around, but there was no one within earshot. “I’ve been known to. But never money or jewelry, or anything of purely monetary value.”
“Some say you once stole an entire baseball team.”
Nick’s eyes twinkled for an instant. “Do they really say that?”
“Mr. Velvet, could you steal the jury in the Satin case?”
Nick sat back in his chair, thinking. “The entire jury?”
“The entire jury. Twelve jurors and one alternate.”
“I could do it,” Nick decided, “as long as you did not intend to hold them for ransom or otherwise profit financially.”
Whipple seemed surprised at such quick and easy agreement. “You understand the jury is sequestered. They’re constantly guarded by two court attendants—male and female—and they’re locked in hotel rooms at night. That’s so they’re not influenced by all the newspaper publicity about the case.”
“It’ll be a problem, but I think I can manage it,” Nick said. “What do you want done with them?”
“Just held for a day or two and then released. I’ll notify you where you can bring them.”
“Are you hoping for a mistrial? They’ll only try her again, you know.”
Adam Whipple, whose expression at its best could hardly be called friendly, frowned and tilted his balding head slightly. “I understand you charge a great deal of money, Mr. Velvet. For that sum I do not expect questions or opinions or suggestions.”
“All right.”
“You’ll do it then?”
“I’ll do it,” Nick said.
The courtroom was crowded to capacity, and Nick had found it necessary to bribe his way into the spectators’ line in order to gain admittance. It was the second day of the prosecution’s case, and he sat behind two snickering housewives listening to the testimony of the detective who had investigated the case. He was a tall sharp-featured man named Reager, and he talked exactly the way a detective should talk under the circumstances.
“May I refer to my notes to refresh my memory?” he asked the prosecuting attorney, and when permission was granted he flipped open a little black notebook, glanced quickly at it, and then began to talk. “It was on the sixteenth of January, shortly after midnight, that I was summoned to the country estate of Gregory Satin.”
“And who summoned you, Detective Reager?”
“The Sheriffs deputy on patrol out there. He was the first one on the scene. When I arrived I observed the deputy standing with Mrs. Satin near the entrance to this maze—”
“Suppose you describe the maze for the jury.”
Nick let his eyes wander to the jury box, where the twelve men and women sat in rapt attention. It was too early in the day, and too interesting a case, for them to be fidgeting yet. He noted there were eight men and four women, plus another woman alternate seated next to them because the jury box held only twelve persons.
His mind shifted back to the witness stand in time to hear the detective saying, “—the maze was constructed of tall yew hedges, seven feet high. I understand Mr. Satin laid it out to duplicate one in the gardens of England’s Hampton Court Palace. Mrs. Satin told me she’d entered the maze shortly after eleven P.M., armed with a revolver.”
“That would have been about one hour before you arrived?”
“Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I cautioned Mrs. Satin as to her rights—”
“Why did you think that was necessary
?”
“The Sheriffs deputy who’d been first on the scene found a revolver in the snow near her, and she admitted to firing it. I questioned her further, and she told me she’d entered the maze about five minutes ahead of the dead woman, Laura Indris. The snow had stopped by that time, and there was a full moon, which enabled them to make their way between the rows of hedges. After about a half hour they found each other in the center of the maze, and both fired. Mrs. Satin shot Miss Indris dead, hitting her in the back with a single shot, apparently just as Miss Indris turned to run.”
“Did Mrs. Satin refer to the shooting as a duel?”
“Yes, she did. She said they’d fought a duel.”
“And where was Mr. Satin at this time?”
“He was away from the house on business. He returned home shortly before one A.M., during my questioning of Mrs. Satin.”
Nick rose from his last-row seat and slipped quietly out the door. He could already see that it would be a fairly long trial. Though a duel in a maze by moonlight, fought over the love of a man, certainly had its bizarre aspects, what concerned him at the moment was the jury.
He chose a position on the sun-drenched plaza overlooking the courthouse entrance, where he could observe them on their way to lunch. He’d already decided that stealing them from the courtroom itself was impossible. Stealing them from their hotel at night would be equally impossible, with the jurors scattered in several rooms. He had to kidnap them together, and get away fast.
“Well!” a voice spoke suddenly behind him. “It’s Nick Velvet himself!”
Nick recognized the voice even before he turned his head. It was that of Lieutenant Charlie Weston of the Eastbridge police, the only police detective in the entire northeast who knew him by sight, and knew what he did for a living. “Hello, Charlie. I thought you were in Eastbridge.”
“I’m here on police business, delivering a bank robber to them. While I was in town I thought I’d just look in on the Satin trial. Funny thing, I saw you leaving just as I got to the door.”