Greek Coffin Mystery (17 page)

“He had forty-two hundred in his account. Closed it, took the money in small bills. Carried a small suitcase; looked new. Gave no explanation.”

The Inspector went to the door. “Hagstrom!” A detective with Scandinavian features trotted up—he was jumpy, on the quivering alert. “Alan Cheney’s gone. Withdrew forty-two hundred dollars from the Mercantile National at nine this morning. Find him. Find out where he spent the night, as a starter. Get a warrant and take it along with you. Camp on his trail. Take help. He may try to get out of the State. Make tracks, Hagstrom.”

Hagstrom disappeared, and Velie followed him quickly.

The Inspector confronted them again; this time there was no benevolence in his glance as he pointed to Joan Brett. “You’ve had a hand in most everything so far Miss Brett. Do you know anything about young Cheney’s run-out?”

“Nothing, Inspector.” Her voice was low.

“Well—anybody!” snarled the old man. “Why did he skip? What’s behind all this?”

Questions. Steel-tipped words. Hidden wounds that bled internally. … And the minutes ticked by.

Delphina Sloane was sobbing. “Surely—Inspector—you aren’t—you can’t be thinking of … My Alan’s a child, Inspector. Oh, he can’t be—! There’s something wrong, Inspector! Something wrong!”

“You said a mouthful there, Mrs. Sloane,” said the Inspector with a ghastly grin. He wheeled—Sergeant Velie stood, like Nemesis, in the doorway. “What’s up, Thomas?”

Velie extended his gargantuan arm. In his hand there was a small sheet of note-paper. The Inspector snatched it from him. “What’s this?” Ellery and Pepper moved forward quickly; the three men read the few hurriedly scribbled lines on the sheet. The Inspector looked at Velie; Velie stalked over, and they went into a corner. The old man asked a single question, and Velie replied laconically. They came back to the center of the room.

“Let me read you something, ladies and gentlemen.” They strained forward, breathing hard. The Inspector said: “I hold in my hand a message Sergeant Velie has just found in this house. It is signed by Alan Cheney.” He raised the paper and began to read, slowly and distinctly. “The message reads: ‘I am going away. Perhaps forever. Under the circumstances—Oh, what’s the use? Everything is all in a tangle, and I just can’t say what. … Good-by. I shouldn’t be writing this at all. It’s dangerous for you. Please—for your own sake—burn this. Alan.’”

Mrs. Sloane half-rose from her chair, her face saffron, screamed once, and fainted. Sloane caught her limp body as she sagged forward. The room burst into sound—cries, exclamations. The Inspector watched it all with calmness, quiet as a cat.

They managed, finally, to revive the woman. Then the Inspector went up to her and, very smoothly, slipped the paper under the woman’s tear-swollen eyes. “Is this your son’s handwriting, Mrs. Sloane?”

Her mouth was hideously wide. “Yes. Poor Alan. Poor Alan. Yes.”

The Inspector’s voice said clearly: “Sergeant Velie, where did you find this note?”

Velie growled, “Upstairs in one of the bedrooms. It was stuck under a mattress.”

“And whose bedroom was it?”

“Miss Brett’s.”

It was too much—too much for everybody. Joan closed her eyes to shut out the hostile stares, the unspoken accusation, the Inspector’s expressionless triumph.

“Well, Miss Brett?” That was all he said.

She opened her eyes then, and he saw that they were filled with tears. “I—found it this morning. It had been slipped under the door of my room.”

“Why didn’t you report it at once?”

No reply.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it when we discovered Cheney’s absence?”

Silence.

“More important—what did Alan Cheney mean when he wrote: ‘It’s dangerous for you?’”

Whereupon the floodgates that are an anatomical adjunct of womankind’s delicate structure opened with a rush, and Miss Joan Brett dissolved in those pearly tears before noted. She sat shaking, sobbing, gasping, sniffling—as forlorn a young lady as Manhattan encompassed that sunshiny October morning. It was a spectacle so naked that it embarrassed the others. Mrs. Simms, after an instinctive step toward the girl, feebly retreated. Dr. Wardes looked, for once, violently angry; brown lightnings flashed from his eyes as he glared at the Inspector. Ellery was shaking his head in disapproval. Only the Inspector remained unmoved.

“Well, Miss Brett?”

For answer she sprang from her chair, still not looking at them, one arm shielding her eyes, and ran blindly from the room. They heard her stumbling up the stairs.

“Sergeant Velie,” said the Inspector coldly, “you’ll see that Miss Brett’s movements are carefully watched from this moment on.”

Ellery touched his father’s arm. The old man peered at him slyly. Ellery murmured, so that the others could not hear, “My dear, respected, even venerated father, you are probably the world’s most competent policeman—but as a psychologist. …” He shook his head sadly.

*
For the information of Mr. Queen’s readers who have met Inspector Queen’s men in previously published novels, it should be related that Detective Flint, as a result of his defection, was demoted from the detective force, but was later restored to his position because of thwarting a daring robbery; the present case being the earliest so far presented to the public—J. J. McC.

N
OW IT WILL BE
seen that, while Ellery Queen until October the ninth was little more than a wraith haunting the fringes of the Khalkis case, that memorable Saturday afternoon found him, through the mercurial chemistry of his unpredictable nature, plunged very solidly into the heart of the problem—no longer an observer, now a prime mover.

The time was ripe for revelations; the stage was so faultlessly set that he could not resist the temptation to leap into the spotlight. It will be remembered always that this was a younger Ellery than has heretofore been encountered—an Ellery with a cosmic egotism that is commonly associated with sophomores. Life was sweet, there was a knotty problem to solve, a tortuous maze to stride confidently through, and, to add a pinch of drama, a very superior sort of District Attorney to bait.

It began, as so many portentous events have since begun, in the inviolacy of Inspector Queen’s office in Center Street. Sampson was there, thrashing about like a suspicious tiger; Pepper was there, looking very thoughtful; the Inspector was there, slumped in his chair, seething fires in his grey old eyes and his lips as tight as a purse’s mouth. Who could resist, indeed? Especially since, in the midst of an aimless Sampsonian summation of the case, Inspector Queen’s secretary scurried in, out of breath with excitement, to announce that Mr. James J. Knox,
the
James J. Knox—possessor of more millions than it was decent for any man to amass—Knox the banker, Knox the Wall Street king, Knox the-friend-of-the-President—was outside demanding to see Inspector Richard Queen. Resistance after that would have been superhuman.

Knox was really a legend. He used his millions and the power which accompanied them to keep himself out of, rather than in, the public eye. It was his name, not himself, that people knew. It was only human, therefore, for
Messieurs
the Queens, Sampson and Pepper to rise as one man when Knox was ushered into the office, and to exhibit more deference and fluster than the strict conventions of democracy prescribe. The great man shook their hands limply and sat down without being asked.

He was the drying hulk of a giant—nearly sixty at this time and visibly drained of his fabulous physical vigor. The hair of his head, brows and mustache was completely white; the trap of his mouth was a little slack now; only his marbly grey eyes were young.

“Conference?” he asked. His voice was unexpectedly soft—a deceptive voice, low-pitched and hesitant.

“Ah—yes, yes,” said Sampson hastily. “We’ve been discussing the Khalkis case. A very sad affair, Mr. Knox.”

“Yes.” Knox looked squarely at the Inspector. “Progress?”

“Some.” Inspector Queen was unhappy. “It’s all mixed up, Mr. Knox. A great many threads to untangle. I can’t say we see daylight yet.”

This was the moment. The moment, perhaps, which a still younger Ellery may have envisioned in his daydreams—the baffled representatives of the law, the presence of a mighty personality. … “You’re being modest, dad,” said Ellery Queen. Nothing more at the moment. Just the gently chiding tone, the little gesture of deprecation, the precise quarter-smile. “You’re being modest, dad,” as if the Inspector knew what he was talking about.

Inspector Queen sat very quietly indeed, and Sampson’s lips parted. The great one looked from Ellery to his father with judicious inquiry. Pepper was staring open-mouthed.

“You see, Mr. Knox,” Ellery went on in the same humble tone—oh, it was perfect! he thought; “you see, sir, while some odds and ends are still strewn about the landscape, my father neglects to say that the main body of the case has taken definitely solid shape.”

“Don’t quite understand,” said Knox encouragingly.

“Ellery,” began the Inspector, in a tremulous voice …

“It seems clear enough, Mr. Knox,” said Ellery with whimsical sadness. Heavens, what a moment! he thought. “The case is solved.”

It is at such instants snatched out of the racing mill-stream of time that egotists achieve their noblest riches. Ellery was magnificent—he studied the changing expression on the faces of the Inspector, Sampson, Pepper like a scientist watching an unfamiliar but anticipated test-tube reaction. Knox, of course, grasped nothing of the byplay. He was merely interested.

“The murderer of Grimshaw—” choked the District Attorney.

“Who is he, Mr. Queen?” asked Knox mildly.

Ellery sighed and lit a cigaret before replying. It would never do to hurry the denouement. This must be cherished to the last precious moment. Then he allowed the words to trickle through a cloud of smoke. “Georg Khalkis,” he said.

District Attorney Sampson confessed long afterward that, had James J. Knox not been present during this drama, he would have picked up one of the telephones on the Inspector’s desk and hurled it at Ellery’s head. He did not believe. He
could
not believe. A dead man—a man, moreover, blind before he had died—as the murderer! It defied all the laws of credibility. It was more than that—the smug vaporings of a clown, the chimera of a heated brain, the … Sampson, it will be noted, felt very strongly about it.

Restrained, however, by the Presence, he merely shifted in his chair, looking ill, his busy brain already wrestling with the problem of covering up this statement of utter lunacy.

Knox spoke first, because Knox required no emotional recovery. Ellery’s
pronunciamiento
made him blink, it is true, but an instant after he said, in his soft voice, “Khalkis. … Now, I wonder.”

The Inspector then found his tongue. “I think,” he said, licking his old red lips quickly, “I think
we
owe Mr. Knox an explanation—eh, son?” His tone belied his glance; his glance was furious.

Ellery leaped from his chair. “We certainly do,” he said heartily. “Especially since Mr. Knox is personally interested in the case.” He perched on the edge of the Inspector’s desk. “Really a unique problem, this one,” he said. “It has some positively inspired points.

“Please attend. There were two principal clews: the first revolving about the necktie Georg Khalkis was wearing on the morning of his collapse from heart-failure; the second concerning the percolator and tea-cups in Khalkis’ study.”

Knox looked slightly blank. Ellery said: “I beg your pardon, Mr. Knox. Of course you’re unfamiliar with these things,” and rapidly outlined the facts surrounding the investigation. When Knox nodded his comprehension, Ellery continued. “Now let me explain what we were able to glean from this business of Khalkis’ neckties.” He was careful to pluralize himself; Ellery, although this has been questioned by malicious persons, possessed a strong family pride. “On Saturday morning a week ago, the morning of Khalkis’ death, you will observe that Khalkis’ imbecile valet Demmy prepared his cousin’s raiment, by his own testimony,
according to schedule.
It was to be expected, therefore, that Khalkis should have been wearing the precise items of clothing specified in the regular Saturday schedule. Refer to the Saturday schedule, and what do you find? You find that, among other articles, Khalkis should have been wearing a
green
moiré necktie.

“So far, so good. Demmy, concluding his morning ritual of assisting his cousin to dress, or at least of laying out the scheduled clothing, leaves at nine o’clock. Fifteen minutes elapse, an interval during which Khalkis, fully attired, is alone in his study. At nine-fifteen Gilbert Sloane enters to confer with Khalkis about the day’s projects. And what do we find? We find, according to Sloane’s testimony—not emphasized, of course, but there nevertheless—that at nine-fifteen Khalkis is wearing a
red
tie.”

He had his audience now; his feeling of satisfaction manifested itself in a bawdy chuckle. “An interesting situation, eh? Now, if Demmy told the truth, we are confronted with a curious discrepancy which pules for explanation. If Demmy told the truth—and his mental condition obviates mendaciousness—Khalkis therefore must have been wearing the scheduled, or
green,
tie at nine o’clock, the time Demmy left him.

“How explain the discrepancy, then? Well, this is the inevitable explanation: in the fifteen-minute period in which he was alone, Khalkis, for some reason we shall probably never know, went into his bedroom and
changed
his tie, discarding the green one given him by Demmy for one of the red ties hanging on the rack in his bedroom wardrobe.

“Now we also know from Sloane’s testimony that, during his confabulation with Khalkis some time after nine-fifteen that morning, Khalkis fingered the tie he was wearing—which Sloane had already noticed, on originally entering the room, to be red—and said, in these exact words: ‘Before you leave remind me to call Barrett’s and order some new ties
like the one I’m wearing.’”
His eyes were bright. “The verbal italicization is mine. Now observe. Just as Miss Brett was leaving Khalkis’ study much later, she heard Khalkis call the number of Barrett’s, his haberdasher. Barrett’s, as a check-up later established, delivered—according to the testimony of the clerk who spoke to Khalkis—
exactly what Khalkis ordered.
But what was it that Khalkis had ordered? Obviously, what had been delivered. But what had been delivered? Six
red
ties!”