Queen’s Bureau of Investigation (19 page)

“I agree,” said Ellery, frowning at the note, “that something is awfully wrong.…”

“I want action!” shouted Billy's father.

“You, Mr. Harper, want a kick in the pants,” said Inspector Queen unexpectedly. “I've been sniffing your premises.” He took from his pocket a handful of large, squarish white envelopes. “Identical with the envelope the note came in. Your envelope, Mr. Harper. You
didn't snatch your own boy to get him away from his ma, now, did you?
And use the note as a red herring?”

Billy's father sank into a chair. “Mibs, I swear to you—!”

“Where's Billy?” screamed his wife. “What did you do with my child, you—you baby-snatcher!”

“Oh, come off it, Mrs. H,” said a voice, and they all looked around to see the beautiful Miss Jones uncrossing her famous legs and rising to her much photographed height. “Take a look at that notepaper, Inspector. It's hers.”

“Mrs. Harper's?” said Ellery, elevating his brows.

“That's right. She wrote me a threatening letter on paper just like it only last week.” Jarryl Jones laughed. “She's stashed the kid somewhere and sent the note, using one of Lloyd's envelopes to frame him for the foul deed. A woman scorned, et cetera. Darlin', you owe me a meal from last night. How about brunch?”

But Lloyd Harper was staring at his wife.

She said slowly, “Of course it isn't true. I wouldn't do a thing like that, Lloyd. And if I did, I wouldn't be so stupid as to use my own notepaper.”

“Or me to use my own envelopes, Mibs,” groaned Harper. “Anybody could have got hold of one of my envelopes, Inspector Queen—or for that matter of a sheet of my wife's stationery. Somebody's framing me—her—us!”

The Inspector patted his mustache agitatedly. Then he muttered, “Time,” and took Ellery aside. “Son …”

“Let's wait,” Ellery soothed him. “Till the Sergeant gets back.”

“Velie? Where'd he go, Ellery?”

“I sent him over to our apartment to get something out of my newspaper file. I want to check my memory.”

“Of
what?
”

“Of a feature story I read a couple of Sundays ago, Dad. If I'm right, it's going to clear this thing up.”

Sergeant Velie reappeared twenty minutes later, just after Inspector Queen received two reports—one that the nurse, Miss M'Govern, had not yet revealed the whereabouts of Ralph Kleinschmidt, the other that the all-night city-wide search for little Billy Harper had failed to turn up a trace of him. Mrs. Harper was weeping again, the beautiful Miss Jones was telling Mr. Harper off, and Mr. Harper was glaring at the beautiful Miss Jones with homicide in his bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you, Sergeant!” Ellery snatched the gaudy Sunday supplement and turned to the center spread. “Ah.… See this?” He flourished the newspaper. “It's the story of a kidnapping in California a year or so ago. The child was recovered when the FBI caught the kidnaper, and the man was tried under the Lindbergh law and found guilty. He was executed a few weeks ago, which is why the story was rehashed in this Sunday feature. Now let me read you the original ransom note sent by the California kidnaper to the father of the kidnaped California child.” And Ellery read, “
The price is
50
grand to get the kid back safe. Small bills in oilcloth bundle. Father to drive alone by southwest corner La Brea and Wilshire Boulevards, exactly 11:15 a.m. today …”

“The same note,” gasped Inspector Queen.

“Identical, Dad. Right down to the
Follow orders or else
. And that tells us,” said Ellery, whirling, “who's behind the snatch of Billy Harper.”

And everyone was still as Billy's space helmet on his father's bust of George Washington.

“The kidnaper of Billy Harper,” Ellery went on, waving the supplement, “not only used the ransom note in the year-old California case as the model for
his
ransom note, he even duplicated the Los Angeles street corner indicated in the California note as the place for the payment of the Harper money. That is, the kidnaper appointed an
impossible
meeting place! Why should he have done this? If the kidnapping of Billy were a blind—if, let us say, Mr. Harper wanted to take possesion of his little boy and make it seem to everyone, especially his wife, like an outside abduction for the usual ransom—he would hardly have designated an impossible place for the ‘payment' of the ransom, making the whole business suspect at once, when all he had to do was name a rendezvous in the New York area and simply fail to have his mythical ‘kidnaper' show up. The criminal would be thought to have changed his mind or been scared off.

“So the designation of Los Angeles as the payoff place in the Harper case makes utterly no sense—that is,” said Ellery softly, “if you think of the kidnaper as someone with the capacity to realize how impossible it is. But suppose the writer of the Harper note
didn't
realize that New York and Los Angeles are three thousand miles apart?”

“Why, Maestro,” said Sergeant Velie, “a moron knows that.”

“An adult moron, perhaps, Sergeant,” said Ellery with a smile. “But even a bright little boy of seven may be excused for his ignorance. Mr. and Mrs. Harper, I'm happy to say that your son Billy was kidnaped by none other than—himself! This Sunday supplement story probably gave him the idea, and in his enthusiasm he copied the California ransom note word for word. He used a sheet of your notepaper, Mrs. Harper, and one of your envelopes, Mr. Harper, not realizing that in doing so he was implicating both his mommy and his daddy.… Where is he?” Ellery grinned in answer to Billy Harper's father's rather grim question. “Well, my hunch is—based on this and that—that Billy went back across the park last evening, after giving Miss M'Govern the slip, and sneaked into this very house, Mr. Harper.…”

They found young Billy holed up behind an old trunk in the attic surrounded by the crusts of six cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, two empty milk bottles, and thirteen comic books—definitely awed, Sergeant Velie counted them. Billy said he had snatched himself 'cause it seemed like a nexcitin' thing to do. But Ellery has always held the young man to be a psychological prodigy who knew just what to do to make two rather difficult adults patch up his personal world again. There is no way of proving this, but it is significant that Miss Jarryl Jones was seen with Lloyd Parker no more and Mrs. Harper moved right back across the park.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1954 by Ellery Queen

Copyright renewed by Ellery Queen

Cover design by Kat Lee

ISBN 978-1-5040-1656-8

This 2015 edition published by
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