Queen’s Bureau of Investigation (10 page)

BOOK: Queen’s Bureau of Investigation
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“I take it, Mr. Keckley, you didn't discuss the new plan with anyone at all?”

“No, sir! I didn't even let the other tellers see me make up the Wheeler payroll that Wednesday afternoon.”

“And I suppose you didn't give any information away, Wolfert,” said Ellery when the cashier, perspiring, had fled. “I know, I know; don't bother. What time that Thursday morning did Anson Wheeler pick the payroll up at your house?”

“Quarter past seven.”

“That early?” Ellery sat up. “And he was going directly to the Ridge Road, to his plant?”

“The plant's work day starts eight o'clock.”

“While the Wrightsville National Bank,” murmured Ellery, “doesn't open its doors till nine-thirty.” He rose suddenly. “Be seeing you, Wolfert!”

Ellery had Ed Hotchkiss drive him up to Hill Valley. At the point where Shingle Street ends and Route 478A turns east to Twin Hill-in-the-Beeches, the Ridge Road begins, bearing north around the heavily forested hills above Wrightsville and then due west into the Valley.

Ed slowed his taxi down. “This is where the dirty work was done, Mr. Queen. Nothing here but the road and woods, y'see—”

“We'll nose around the scene of the foul deed in due course, Edward. First let's talk to Anse Wheeler.”

The Wheeler Company occupied a long low building of blackened brick not far from Wrightsville Airport. It was as ugly a factory as the old machine shop in Low Village, which was Ellery's standard frame of reference. Inside, the building was poorly lighted and ventilated, the floors sagged alarmingly under the weight of the heavy machinery, generations of dirt crusted the walls, and the workmen labored in silence. Ellery, who had begun to like Anson Wheeler, decided to dislike him all over again.

He found the owner in a bare, chilly office of scarified golden oak. Wheeler was a tense-looking man of middle age and height, with eyes as pale as his cheeks. His highpitched voice had a chronic note of resentment in it, almost a whine.

“I know, I know what you're here for, Mr. Queen,” he said bitterly. “Van Horn's already phoned me. Well, I consider myself a fair man. I won't have you think I'm persecuting him. But I tell you the boy did it. If I weren't convinced, do you think I'd press this case? I'm—I'm very fond of Mrs. Wheeler. But she's got to see Delbert as he really is. A troublemaker, a thief! It's not the money, Mr. Queen. It's …
him.

“But suppose, Mr. Wheeler, you found out that Del didn't do it?”

“I'd be a very happy man,” said Anse Wheeler with a groan. Then his thin lips tightened. “But he did.”

“That first time—the unsuccessful attempt. Did you get a good look at the masked man before you got away?”

“Well, he was sort of tall, and thin. There was a silk-looking handkerchief over his face. I was too excited to notice anything else. But later, looking back, I saw that it must have been Delbert.”

“He was pointing a gun, I believe?”

“Yes. The boy has a gun. He brought one back with him from Korea.”

“He made no attempt to fire after you as you stepped on the gas?”

“I don't know. They didn't find any bullet holes in the car. I almost ran him down. He jumped into a bush.”

“You realize, of course, Mr. Wheeler, that it might have been anybody tall and thin …”

“You think I'm pinning it on him!” cried Anse Wheeler. “Well, how about that handkerchief? The next Thursday?”

“Tell me about it, Mr. Wheeler,” said Ellery sympathetically.

“I picked up my payroll at Wolfert's house early that morning and took the Ridge Road as usual.” Wheeler's high voice climbed higher. “There, at almost the same spot as the Friday morning before, was a tree across the road. I came on it so unexpectedly around the bend, all I could think to do was jam on my brakes, grab the package of money, and try to run for it … He—he hit me. As I got out of my car.”

“Del hit you, Mr. Wheeler?” murmured Ellery.

“I didn't actually see him, no. My back was to him. But wait! The whack on my head dazed me only for a second or two—he must have missed where he was aiming. I tried to fight him.” Wheeler's pale eyes flashed fire suddenly. “He's a strong boy and he's been in the Army—oh, he knew how to get me! He crooked his arm around my throat from behind, and I was helpless. I reached up and tried to claw at his face. I felt something silky in my fingers and then he hit me on the back of the head again. Next thing I knew Officer Jorking was reviving me. The money was gone, but I'd held on to the handkerchief.
It was Delbert's.

“You're positive,” said Ellery, “it was his.”

“Had his initials on it! I'd given him that silk pocket handkerchief when I married his mother. I outfitted that boy from head to foot …!”

Ellery left Anson K. Wheeler in his grimy office, tight face bloodless and long fingers feeling the back of his head.

Officer Jorking lay in the men's ward at Wrightsville General Hospital, munching disgustedly at a winter apple. His left leg and thigh were buried to the hip in a bulky cast, and he was lying in a maze of traction apparatus.

“I feel like some screwball's invention,” said the young policeman out of a deep gloom. “And stuck in this contraption since last September! If they don't give that kid ten years, Mr. Queen, I'll personally break his neck.”

“Tough all around, Jeep,” mourned Ellery, sitting down beside the hospital bed. “How did it happen?”

Young Jorking spat out an apple pip. “The Ridge Road's part of my beat—I cover the whole district north of town. When Mr. Wheeler was almost held up that first time, Chief Dakin ordered me to keep my eye on him without letting on. So when Wheeler picked up his payroll that morning at Van Horn's on North Hill Drive, I was tailing his Pierce in my prowl car.

“He turned into Ridge Road, me staying far enough back so I won't scare off the robber if he should give it another try. That's how the kid got away from me. I didn't come around the bend of the road till it was all over. Wheeler was stretched out cold, blood streaming from his head, and a skinny tall figure was just diving into the woods to the east of the road.”

“To the
east.

“Yes, sir. I fired a couple of snap shots in his direction, but I didn't hit anything, and by the time I'd pulled up where he'd gone for cover, there wasn't a sign of him. So I reported to headquarters on my two-way radio and took care of Mr. Wheeler. He wasn't dead, wasn't even hurt bad.

“The first thing I spotted was that silk handkerchief in his hand with the initials
D. H.
Every buck in town knew that silk handkerchief—it was the first one young Del'd ever owned, and he kept showing it off—so I knew right away who it had been.”

“How did he break your hip?” asked Ellery.

“I broke it going after him.” The young officer spat out another pip. “Del walked into the house quite a while after I got Mr. Wheeler home and was fixing his head. The kid was sort of scratched up and his clothes were full of bits of twig and thorn. He said he'd been tramping through the woods. I told him what happened, showed him his hanky, and said I'd have to pull him in. Darned if he didn't take off!—jumped clean through a window. I chased him along the edge of that ravine behind the Wheeler house, and that's how I came to bust my hip. Tripped over a root and fell smack into the ravine. It's a wonder I didn't break my back.… It was Del packed me out of there. Seems he saw me tumble in and decided to turn Boy Scout.”

Young Jorking scowled at his mummified left foot and flung the apple core at it. “Ah, it's a mixed-up kind of case, Mr. Queen. I wish I didn't have to testify.”

So then Ellery went over to police headquarters and sat down in Chief Dakin's swivel chair near the picture of J. Edgar Hoover, and he said, “Mind if I mull over this for a while, old pal?”

“Mull away,” grunted Dakin. The chief stood at his window studying State Street.

Finally Ellery said, “My muller seems out of order. Did you consider any other possibilities, Dakin?”

“Like fury,” said the chief of police, not unkindly. “But who would you have me pin it on? The only other ones who knew about that switch in payroll days were Wheeler himself, Mamie, Wolfert Van Horn, and Olin Keckley.

“Wolf Van Horn might have done it, sure, if there were a million or two involved. But I can't see him risking the Pen at his age for a measly fifteen thousand—not with all the money he's got. Keckley? A man like Olin might help himself from the till under certain circumstances, but armed robbery? masks? hitting folks over the head? jumping into bushes?” The chief shook his head. “Not Olin. He'd faint dead away first.”

“Then one of them blabbed!”

“Could be. Only they all say they didn't.”

“Damn! I'd like to get that boy off.” Ellery gnawed a knuckle. “About the payroll, Dakin. You never found any part of it, hm?”

“Nary a dime.”

“Where'd you look?”

“We searched the Wheeler house and grounds, and just about every other place in and out of town young Del's known to hang around. He's got it hid away somewhere, of course. Probably hid it right after the holdup.”

“Did you search the woods?”

“Near the scene, on the theory that the robber might have dropped it when Jorking chased him, or hid it as part of a plan? Yep,” said Chief Dakin, “we searched those woods east of the road with a fine-tooth comb, Mr. Queen.”

“Just east of the road?”

Dakin stared. “That's the direction the robber took when he lit out.”

“But why not west, too? He might have doubled back across the road somewhere out of Jeep's view!”

Dakin shook his head. “You're wasting your time, Mr. Queen. Supposing you even found the money. That'd be fine for Anse Wheeler, but how would it help get young Del off?”

“It's a loose end,” said Ellery irritably. “You never know how a loose end ties in, Dakin. And anyway, I've covered everything else. Come on, you're going to search with me.”

They found the stolen Wheeler payroll in the woods not fifty yards west of the Ridge Road, on a due line from the spot where Anse Wheeler had been held up the preceding September.

Chief Dakin was chagrined. “I feel like a dummy!”

“Needn't,” said Ellery, intent, on his knees. “Last fall these woods were in full foliage, and to have found anything like this would have constituted an act of God. In January, with the trees stripped bare and the ground clear, it's a different boiler of bass.”

The package of money had been buried in a shallow pit at the base of a tree. But rains and winds had torn away the thin covering of dirt and leafmold, and both men had spotted the package at the same time, bulging soddenly out of the earth.

Nature had been unkind to Anson Wheeler's payroll. The brown paper in which it was wrapped had disintegrated under the action of soil and elements. Small animals and birds had evidently gnawed at rotting, mildewed, moldy bills. Insects had contributed to the wreckage. Most of the paper money was in unrecognizable, fused lumps and shreds.

“If there's two thousand dollars in salvage left,
including
the silver,” muttered Wrightsville's chief of police, “Anse is in luck. Only there ain't.”

“It was that awfully hot Indian summer and this mild winter,” murmured Ellery. “Most of the damage was done before the ground hardened.” Ellery got to his feet. “Fortunately.”

“For who?”

“For Del Hood. This mass of corruption is going to keep young Delbert out of quad.”

“What!”

“Up to now I've only hoped the boy was innocent. Now I know it.”

Chief Dakin stared at him. Then, bewilderedly, he squatted to examine the remains of the payroll, as if he had missed a clue buried in it somewhere.

“But I don't see—!”

“Later, Dakin. Right now we'd better use my topcoat to gather this filth up in. It's evidence!”

And when everyone was arranged to Ellery's satisfaction, he looked about him and he said, “This one has the beautiful merit of simplicity.

“Look.

“Robber assaults Mr. Wheeler on the Ridge Road, snatches the payroll in its paper wrappings, and shortly thereafter buries the package in a very shallow pit in the woods not fifty yards from the scene of the robbery. This is last September I'm talking about.

“Now a robber who buries his loot immediately after he's stolen it either intends it as a temporary cache—till the first hue and cry blows over—or as a long-term hiding place … till the case is practically forgotten, say, or till he's taken a world cruise, or served a prison term.

“Did our robber mean that hole in the woods to be the hiding place of his loot for a short time, or a long time?

“For a short time,” said Ellery, answering himself, “obviously. No robber in his right mind would take fifteen thousand dollars in paper money, wrapped in paper wrappings, and bury it for any length of time. If he had the sense he was born with he'd know what he'd find when he came back—what, in fact, Chief Dakin and I did find—a soggy, eaten-up, chewed-away, soil-eroded, disintegrated wad of valueless pulp. For a long-time burial, he'd have provided himself with a weather-resistant, strong container of some sort, of metal or even of heavy wood.

“Our robber, then, had nothing of the sort in mind. By burying the payroll in its perishable paper wrappings—in a shallow hole—he tells us that he intended it to lie there for a very short time. Perhaps only for hours, or at the most, days.

“As it turns out,
he left it there for almost five months
—until, as you see, it was practically destroyed. I ask the reasonable question: Why, after planning to retrieve it in a short time, did he leave it there to rot? Certainly at some period in the past five months it must have been perfectly safe for him to dig it up. In fact, he would have been safe any time after the first few days. Nobody's been shadowed in this case—not even Del, out on bail. And the spot is a lonely one, well off the road in the woods. So again I ask: Why didn't the robber come back for his loot? To spend it, or to transfer it to another hiding place, or to repackage it if for no other reason?”

BOOK: Queen’s Bureau of Investigation
2.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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