Halfway House (4 page)

“I don’t know. It’s sealed, and he didn’t tell me.”

“Well, for cripes sake, didn’t he say
anything
about it?”

“Just that I was to keep it for him temporarily.”

“Where is it now?”

“In my safe,” said Bill grimly, “where it’s going to stay.”

De Jong grunted. “I forgot you’re a lawyer. Well, Angell, we’ll see about that. Doc, is there any way of telling exactly when this man was knifed? We know he died at ten after nine. But when was the knife stuck into him?”

The coroner shook his head. “I couldn’t say. Certainly not long before. The man must have held on to life with remarkable tenacity. I could hazard a guess—eight-thirty, perhaps. But don’t bank on it. Shall I send for the wagon?”

“Yes. No,” said De Jong, showing his teeth. “No, we’ll keep him here for a while. I’ll call for the wagon when I want it. G o on home, Doc; you can do the autopsy for us in the morning. You’re sure it was the knife did the job?”

“Positive. But if there was anything else, I’ll find it.”

“Doctor,” said Ellery slowly. “Have you found—on the hands or anywhere else—any burns?”

The old gentleman stared. “Burns? Burns? Certainly not!”

“Would you mind keeping a weather-eye out for burns when you’re doing the autopsy? Particularly on the extremities.”

“Damned fool thing. Very well, very well!” And in something of a huff the coroner stamped out.

De Jong’s mouth was open, ready to ask a question, when a fat detective with a scarred mouth shambled up and engaged him in conversation. Bill strolled about in aimless fashion. After a while the detective waddled away. “Mess of fingerprints all over the place, my man says,” grunted De Jong, “but most of ’em seem to be Wilson’s… Now what are you doing on that rug, Mr. Queen? You look like a frog.”

Ellery rose from his knees. He had been crawling about the room for the past few minutes scrutinizing the surface of the fawn rug as if his life depended upon it. Bill was planted by the main door, a peculiar glitter in his eye. “Oh, I revert to the animal once in a while,” smiled Ellery. “Does a body good. Remarkably clean rug, De Jong. Not a speck of mud or anything else anywhere on it.”

De Jong looked puzzled. Ellery puffed placidly on his pipe and strolled toward the wooden clothes-rack on the wall. Out of the corner of his eye he watched his friend at the door. Bill looked down at his feet suddenly, grimaced, and stooped to fumble with the lace of his left shoe. It took him some time to get it tied to his complete satisfaction. When he rose his face was red from his exertions, and his right hand was buried in his pocket. Ellery sighed. He felt sure, as he glanced at the others, that they had not seen Bill pick up something from the one spot on the rug which he himself had not examined.

De Jong strode out, flinging a glance of warning at his man Murphy. They heard him shouting orders on the wooden porch. Bill dropped into a chair and propped his elbow on his knee, staring down at the dead man with the oddest look of bitter inquiry.

“I grow more and more fascinated by this extraordinary brother-in-law of yours,” growled Ellery, standing before the rack.

“Eh?”

“These suits, now. Where did Wilson buy his duds?”

“Philadelphia department stores. He often picked things up at Wanamaker’s clearance sales.”

“Really?” Ellery flipped back one of the coats and exposed a label. “That’s strange. Because, if you’ll accept the evidence of this label, he patronized the most exclusive tailor on Fifth Avenue in New York!”

Bill’s head jerked around. “Nonsense.”

“And the cut, general swank, the material of the garment don’t give the label the lie, either. Let’s see… Yes, yes. There are four suits here, and they all purport to come from the same Fifth Avenue source.”

“That’s utterly incredible!”

“Of course,” observed Ellery, “there’s always the explanation that neither the shack nor what’s in it belonged to him.”

Bill was glaring at the rack with a sort of horror. He said eagerly: “Certainly. That’s it, that’s it. Why, Joe never spent more than thirty-five dollars for a suit in his life!”

“On the other hand,” frowned Ellery, picking up something from the floor beneath the rack, “there are two pairs of shoes here that come from Abercrombie & Fitch. And,” he added, reaching for the single hat on one of the pegs, “an Italian fedora that set somebody back twenty dollars, if I’m any judge of what the well-dressed man is soaked for his headgear.”

“They can’t be his!” cried Bill, springing to his feet. He brushed the gaping detective out of his way and knelt by his brother-in-law’s body. “Here, you see? Wanamaker’s label!”

Ellery replaced the hat on the peg. “All right, Bill,” he said gently. “All right. Now sit down and cool off. All this confusion will right itself in time.”

“Yes,” said Bill. “I suppose so.” And he went back to his chair and sat down, closing his eyes.

Ellery continued his deliberate saunter about the room, touching nothing and missing nothing. Occasionally he glanced at his friend; and then he would frown and quicken his pace a little, as if at some irresistible compulsion… One thing impressed him: the shack was a single room and there was no possible corner or closet which might have served as a place of temporary concealment. He even poked into the fireplace, which was very low, and saw that the flue was much too small to admit a human body.

After a while De Jong hurried back and proceeded to squat behind the table, becoming busy with the dead man’s clothing. Bill opened his eyes; he rose again and went to the table and leaned on his knuckles to stare down at the policeman’s massive neck. From outside the shack came the voices of many men. They seemed to be occupied with a work of importance in the two driveways. Once the silent men inside heard the shrill voice of Ella Amity engaged in ribald banter with the detectives.

“Well, Mr. Queen,” said De Jong at last in a hearty tone, without looking up from what he was doing, “any ideas?”

“None that, like Shaw’s Superman, I would fight for. Why?”

“I’d always heard you were a fast worker.” There was a trace of sardonic humor in the big man’s voice.

Ellery chuckled and took something down from the mantel above the fireplace. “You’ve seen this, of course?”

“Well?”

Bill’s head came about in a flash. “What the devil is it?” he asked hoarsely.

“Yeah,” drawled De Jong. “What d’ye make of it, Mr. Queen?”

Ellery glanced at him briefly. Then he deposited his find, with its wrappings, on the round table. Bill gulped it down with his eyes. It was a desk-set in brown tooled leather: desk-blotter pad with triangular leather corners, a bronze-based penholder with wells for two fountain pens, and a small curved bronze blotter-holder. A white card protruded from one of the corner pockets of the large pad. The card was blank except for an inscription in blue ink, written in a large neat masculine script: ‘
To Bill
,
from Lucy and Joe
.’

“Your birthday soon, Angell?” asked De Jong genially, squinting at a piece of paper from the dead man’s breast-pocket.

Bill turned away, his mouth working. “Tomorrow.”

“Damned considerate brother-in-law,” grinned the chief. “That’s his fist, too, on the card, so there’s no question about
that
. One of the boys checked it with a sample of Wilson’s handwriting from his clothes. See for yourself, Mr. Queen.” He tossed to the table the paper he had been holding, a meaningless and unimportant scrawl.

“Oh, I believe you.” Ellery was frowning at the writing-set.

“Seems to interest you,” said De Jong, piling up a number of miscellaneous articles on the table. “Lord knows why! But I’m always ready to learn a new trick. See anything there that escaped me?”

“Since I’ve never had the pleasure of watching you work, De Jong,” murmured Ellery, “I’m scarcely in a position to gauge the extent or accuracy of your observations. But there are certain
minutiæ
of at least hypothetical interest.”

“You don’t say?” De Jong was amused.

Ellery picked up the wrappings of the package. “For one thing, this desk-set was purchased in Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia. That, I confess, means little. But… it’s a fact; and facts, as Ellis Parker Butler might have said,
is
facts.”

“Now, how’d you know that?” De Jong fingered a sales slip from the pile of articles on the table. “Found it in his pocket, all crumpled. He bought it in Wanamaker’s yesterday, all right. It was a cash sale.”

“How? By no startling means. I recognized the Wanamaker wrapping-paper, because I bought a little gift for my father there only this afternoon in passing through Philadelphia. And of course,” continued Ellery mildly, “you’ve noticed the condition of the paper. The question arises: Who undid the package?”

“I don’t know why it should arise,” said De Jong, “but I’ll bite. Who did the foul deed?”

“I should say anyone but poor Wilson. Bill, did you touch anything in this room before I got here tonight?”

“No.”

“None of your men opened this package, De Jong?”

“It was found just the way you saw it, on the mantel.”

“The probability is, then, that it was opened by the murderess—the ‘veiled woman’ Wilson told Bill about before he died. Probability only; of course it may have been done by still a second intruder. But certainly it wasn’t opened by Wilson.”

“Why not?”

“This writing-set was purchased as a gift—witness the card. It was wrapped as a gift—the price-tag has been removed, and the sales slip is in Wilson’s pocket rather than in the package. Therefore whoever bought it did so with the
preconceived
idea of presenting it to Bill Angell. The chances are Wilson bought it in person; but even if he didn’t and delegated someone else to buy it for him, the inspiration would have emanated from him. This being the case, Wilson could have had little reason for opening the package here.”

“I don’t see that,” argued the big man. “Suppose he didn’t write this gift-card in the store—suppose he opened the package here to get one of these pens to write the card with.”

“There’s no ink in either pen, as I’ve already ascertained,” said Ellery patiently. “Of course, he would know that. But even if I grant that he might have had some other reason for opening the package here, he certainly could have had no reason, as donor of the gift, to destroy the wrappings!” Ellery flicked his thumb at the paper: it had been ruthlessly ripped from the writing-set. “Those wrappings could scarcely be used again for their original purpose; and there are no other wrapping materials on the premises. So I say, Wilson at least didn’t open the package; for, if he had, he would have been careful not to tear the paper. The murderess, on the other hand, would have been deterred by no such consideration.”

“So what?” said De Jong.

Ellery looked blank. “My dear De Jong, what an asinine question! At this stage I’m chiefly interested in discovering what the criminal may have done on the scene of her crime; her reasons, whether significant or not, we may worry about later… Now, that paper-knife, used as the weapon. It comes from the writing-set—unquestionably—”

“Sure, sure,” growled De Jong. “That’s why the woman tore open the package—to get at the knife. I could have told you long ago it was the killer who opened it.”

Ellery raised his brows. “I shouldn’t say that was the reason at all, you know. For one thing, since the gift was purchased only yesterday, it’s highly improbable that the murderess knew there would be a sharp new letter-opener handy for her crime tonight. No, no; the use of the letter-opener as a dagger was completely fortuitous, I’m convinced. It’s more likely the murderess was prowling about here before the crime and opened the package out of sheer curiosity, or from an inner necessity due to nervousness in anticipation of what she was about to do. Naturally, discovering the letter-opener, she would prefer to use it rather than the weapon she must have brought along—if this was a premeditated murder, as it seems to have been. And from time inconceivable the female of the species has found in the knife the fullest expression of her homicidal impulses.”

De Jong scratched his nose and looked annoyed. Bill said in a halting way, “If she had time to prowl… It would look as if she had the place to herself for a while. Then where was Joe? Had she attacked him first? The coroner—”

“Now, now, Bill,” said Ellery soothingly, “don’t fret about these things. We haven’t enough facts yet. You didn’t know anything about this gift, Bill?”

“Not a blessed thing. It sort of… bowls me over. I’ve never bothered much with birthdays. Joe—” He averted his face.

“Well,” shrugged De Jong, “I’ll admit a croaked brother-in-law is one hell of a birthday present. What else did you find, Mr. Queen?”

“Do you want a complete résumé?” asked Ellery calmly. “You know, De Jong, the trouble with you fellows is that you can never overcome your professional contempt for the amateur. I’ve known amateurs to sit at the feet of professionals, but I can’t say the reverse has held equally true. Murphy, if I were you I should take notes. Your local prosecutor may bless them some day.”

Murphy looked embarrassed, but De Jong nodded with a grim smile.

“A general description of the shack and its contents,” said Ellery, puffing thoughtfully on his brier, “leads to a rather curious conclusion. In this one-room shack we find neither bed nor cot—no sleeping equipment of any kind. There is a fire-place but no firewood—in fact, no débris or ashes, and the hearth is remarkably clean. The fireplace obviously hasn’t been used for months. What else? A broken-down old coal-stove, eaten away by rust and entirely useless for cooking or heating purposes—no doubt a relic of the days when this shack was occupied by squatters… In this connection, observe that there are no candles, no oil-lamps, no gas connections, no matches of any description—”

“True enough,” admitted De Jong. “Didn’t this bird smoke, Angell?”

“No.” Bill was staring out the front window.

“In fact,” continued Ellery, “the only means of illumination here is the electric lamp on the table. There’s a power-house—?” De Jong nodded. “It’s immaterial whether the occupant of this place had the electricity installed or found it here; probably the latter. In any event, note the bare fact. And, to complete the picture, there is only a handful of chipped crockery, not a trace of foodstuffs, and not even the most ordinary first-aid equipment kept by the poorest for medical emergencies.”