The New Adventures of Ellery Queen (31 page)

“No gat on him, Chief,” said the policeman by his side.

“What did you do with the automatic?” demanded the chief. No answer. “You admit you had it in for Mr. Scott and tried to kill him?” No answer. “Where is Miss Scott?”

“You see,” said Mr. Halliday stonily, “how useless it is.”

“Hankus-Pankus,” murmured Mr. Queen, “you are superb. You don't know where Kathryn is, do you?”

Hankus-Pankus instantly looked alarmed. “Oh, I say, Mr. Queen. Don't make me talk. Please!”

“But you're expecting her to join you here, aren't you?”

Hankus paled. The policeman said: “He's a nut. He didn't even try to make a getaway. He didn't even fight back.”

“Hank! Darling! Father!” cried Katie Scott; and, straggle-haired and dusty-faced, she flew into the office and flung herself upon Mr. Halliday's thin bosom.

“Katie!” screamed Paula, flying to the girl and embracing her; and in a moment all three, Paula and Kathryn and Hankus, were weeping in concert, while old John's jaw dropped even lower and all but Mr. Queen, who was smiling, stood rooted to their bits of Space in timeless stupefaction.

Then Miss Scott ran to her father and clung to him, and old John's shoulders lifted a little, even though the expression of bewilderment persisted; and she burrowed her head into her father's deep, broad chest.

In the midst of this incredible scene the track veterinary bustled in and said: “Good news, Mr. Scott. I've extracted the bullet and, while the wound is deep, I give you my word Danger will be as good as ever when it's healed.” And he bustled out.

And Mr. Queen, his smile broadening, said: “Well, well, a pretty comedy of errors.”

“Comedy!” growled old John over his daughter's golden curls. “D'ye call a murderous attempt on my life a comedy?” And he glared fiercely at Mr. Hank Halliday, who was at the moment borrowing a handkerchief from the policeman with which to wipe his eyes.

“My dear Mr. Scott,” replied Mr. Queen, “there has been no attempt on your life. The shots were not fired at you. From the very first Danger, and Danger only, was intended to be the victim of the shooting.”

“What's this?” cried Paula.

“No, no, Whitey,” said Mr. Queen, smiling still more broadly. “The door, I promise you, is well guarded.”

The jockey snarled: “Yah, he's off his nut. Next thing you'll say
I
plugged the nag. How I could be on Danger's back and at the same time fifty feet away in the grandstand? A million guys saw this screwball fire those shots!”

“A difficulty,” replied Mr. Queen, bowing, “I shall be delighted to resolve. Danger, ladies and gentlemen, was handicapped officially to carry one hundred and twenty pounds in the Santa Anita Handicap. This means that when his jockey, carrying the gear, stepped upon the scales in the weighing-out ceremony just before the race, the combined weight of the jockey and gear had to come to exactly one hundred and twenty pounds; or Mr. Whitey Williams would never have been allowed by the track officials to mount his horse.”

“What's that got to do with it?” demanded the chief, eyeing Mr. Whitey Williams in a hard, unfeeling way.

“Everything. For Mr. Williams told us only a few minutes ago that he weighs only a hundred and seven pounds. Consequently the racing saddle Danger wore when he was shot must have contained various lead weights which, combined with the weight of the saddle, made up the difference between a hundred and seven pounds, Mr. Williams's weight, and a hundred twenty pounds, the handicap weight. Is that correct?”

“Sure. Anybody knows that.”

“Yes, yes, elementary, in Mr. Holmes's imperishable phrase. Nevertheless,” continued Mr. Queen, walking over and prodding with his toe the saddle Whitey Williams had fetched to the office, “when I examined this saddle
there were no lead weights in its pockets
. And Mr. Williams assured me no one had tampered with the saddle since he had removed it from Danger's back. But this was impossible, since without the lead weights Mr. Williams and the saddle would have weighed out at less than a hundred and twenty pounds on the scales.

“And so I knew,” said Mr. Queen, “that Williams had weighed out with a different saddle, that when he was shot Danger was wearing a different saddle, that the saddle Williams lugged away from the wounded horse was a different saddle; that he secreted it somewhere on the premises and fetched here on our request a
second
saddle—this one on the floor—which he had prepared beforehand with a bullet hole nicely placed in the proper spot. And the reason he did this was that obviously there was something in that first saddle he didn't want anyone to see. And what could that have been but a special pocket containing an automatic, which in the confusion following Mr. Halliday's first signal shot, Mr. Williams calmly discharged into Danger's body by simply stooping over as he struggled with the frightened horse, putting his hand into the pocket, and firing while Mr. Halliday was discharging his three other futile shots fifty feet away? Mr. Halliday, you see, couldn't be trusted to hit Danger from such a distance, because Mr. Halliday is a stranger to firearms; he might even hit Mr. Williams instead, if he hit anything. That's why I believe Mr. Halliday was using blank cartridges and threw the automatic away.”

The jockey's voice was strident, panicky. “You're crazy! Special saddle. Who ever heard—”

Mr. Queen, still smiling, went to the door, opened it, and said: “Ah, you've found it, I see. Let's have it. In Danger's stall? Clumsy, clumsy.”

He returned with a racing saddle; and Whitey cursed and then grew still. Mr. Queen and the police chief and John Scott examined the saddle and, surely enough, there was a special pocket stitched into the flap, above the iron hoop, and in the pocket there was a snub-nosed automatic. And the bullet hole piercing the special pocket had the scorched speckled appearance of powder burns.

“But where,” muttered the chief, “does Halliday figure? I don't get him a-tall.”

“Very few people would,” said Mr. Queen, “because Mr. Halliday is, in his modest way, unique among bipeds.”

“Huh?”

“Why, he was Whitey's accomplice—weren't you, Hankus?”

Hankus gulped and said: “Yes. I mean no. I mean—”

“But I'm sure Hank wouldn't—” Katie began to cry.

“You see,” said Mr. Queen briskly, “Whitey wanted a setup whereby he would be the last person in California to be suspected of having shot Danger. The quarrel between John Scott and Hank gave him a ready-made instrument. If he could make Hank seem to do the shooting, with Hank's obvious motive against Mr. Scott, then nobody would suspect his own part in the affair.

“But to bend Hank to his will he had to have a hold on Hank. What was Mr. Halliday's Achilles' heel? Why, his passion for Katie Scott. So last night Whitey's father, Weed Williams, I imagine—wasn't he the jockey you chased from the American turf many years ago, Mr. Scott, and who became a saddlemaker?—kidnaped Katie Scott, and then communicated with Hankus-Pankus and told him just what to do today if he ever expected to see his beloved alive again. And Hankus-Pankus took the gun they provided him with, and listened very carefully, and agreed to do everything they told him to do, and promised he would not breathe a word of the truth afterward, even if he had to go to jail for his crime, because if he did, you see, something terrible would happen to the incomparable Katie.”

Mr. Halliday gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.

“An' all the time this skunk,” growled John Scott, glaring at the cowering jockey, “an' his weasel of a father, they sat back an' laughed at a brave mon, because they were havin' their piddling revenge on me, ruining me!” Old John shambled like a bear towards Mr. Halliday. “An' I am a shamed mon today, Hank Halliday. For that was the bravest thing I ever did hear of. An' even if I've lost my chance for the Handicap purse, through no fault of yours, and I'm a ruined maggot, here's my hand.”

Mr. Halliday took it absently, meanwhile fumbling with his other hand in his pocket. “By the way,” he said, “who did win the Handicap, if I may ask? I was so busy, you see—”

“High Tor,” said somebody in the babble.

“Really? Then I must cash this ticket,” said Mr. Halliday with a note of faint interest.

“Two thousand dollars!” gasped Paula, goggling at the ticket. “He bet two thousand dollars on High Tor at fifty to one!”

“Yes, a little nest egg my mother left me,” said Mr. Halliday. He seemed embarrassed. “I'm sorry, Mr. Scott. You made me angry when you—er—kicked me in the pants, so I didn't bet it on Danger. And High Tor was such a beautiful name.”

“Oh, Hank,” sobbed Katie, beginning to strangle him.

“So now, Mr. Scott,” said Hankus-Pankus with dignity, “may I marry Katie and set you up in the racing business again?”

“Happy days!” bellowed old John, seizing his future son-in-law in a rib-cracking embrace.

“Happy days,” muttered Mr. Queen, seizing Miss Paris and heading her for the nearest bar.

Heigh, Danger!

Mind Over Matter

Paula paris found Inspector Richard Queen of the Homicide Squad inconsolable when she arrived in New York. She understood how he felt, for she had flown in from Hollywood expressly to cover the heavyweight fight between Champion Mike Brown and Challenger Jim Coyle, who were signed to box fifteen rounds at the Stadium that night for the championship of the world.

“You poor dear,” said Paula. “And how about you, Master Mind? Aren't you disappointed, too, that you can't buy a ticket to the fight?” she asked Mr. Ellery Queen.

“I'm a jinx,” said the great man gloomily. “If I went, something catastrophic would be sure to happen. So why should I want to go?”

“I thought witnessing catastrophes was why people
go
to fights.”

“Oh, I don't mean anything gentle like a knockout. Something grimmer.”

“He's afraid somebody will knock somebody off,” said the Inspector.

“Well, doesn't somebody always?” demanded his son.

“Don't pay any attention to him, Paula,” said the Inspector impatiently. “Look, you're a newspaperwoman. Can you get me a ticket?”

“You may as well get me one, too,” groaned Mr. Queen.

So Miss Paris smiled and telephoned Phil Maguire, the famous sports editor, and spoke so persuasively to him that he picked them up that evening in his cranky little sports roadster and they all drove uptown to the Stadium together to see the brawl.

“How do you figure the fight, Maguire?” asked Inspector Queen respectfully.

“On this howdedo,” said Maguire, “Maguire doesn't care to be quoted.”

“Seems to me the champ ought to take this boy Coyle.”

Maguire shrugged. “Phil's sour on the champion,” laughed Paula. “Phil and Mike Brown haven't been cuddly since Mike won the title.”

“Nothing personal, y'understand,” said Phil Maguire. “Only, remember Kid Berès, the Cuban boy? This was in the days when Ollie Stearn was finagling Mike Brown into the heavy sugar. So this fight was a fix, see, and Mike knew it was a fix, and the Kid knew it was a fix, and everybody knew it was a fix and that Kid Berès was supposed to lay down in the sixth round. Well, just the same Mike went out there and sloughed into the Kid and half-killed him. Just for the hell of it. The Kid spent a month in the hospital and when he came out he was only half a man.” And Maguire smiled his crooked smile and pressed his horn gently at an old man crossing the street. Then he started, and said: “I guess I just don't like the champ.”

“Speaking of fixes …” began Mr. Queen.

“Were we?” asked Maguire innocently.

“If it's on the level,” predicted Mr. Queen gloomily, “Coyle will murder the champion. Wipe the ring up with him. That big fellow wants the title.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Damn it,” grinned the Inspector, “who's going to win tonight?”

Maguire grinned back. “Well, you know the odds. Three to one on the champ.”

When they drove into the parking lot across the street from the Stadium, Maguire grunted: “Speak of the devil.” He had backed the little roadster into a space beside a huge twelve-cylinder limousine the color of bright blood.

“Now what's that supposed to mean?” asked Paula Paris.

“This red locomotive next to Lizzie,” Maguire chuckled. “It's the champ's. Or rather, it belongs to his manager, Ollie Stearn. Ollie lets Mike use it. Mike's car's gone down the river.”

“I thought the champion was wealthy,” said Mr. Queen.

“Not any more. All tangled up in litigation. Dozens of judgments wrapped around his ugly ears.”

“He ought to be hunk after tonight,” said the Inspector wistfully. “Pulling down more than a half million bucks for his end!”

“He won't collect a red cent of it,” said the newspaperman. “His loving wife—you know Ivy, the ex-strip-tease doll with the curves and detours?—Ivy and Mike's creditors will grab it all off. Come on.”

Mr. Queen assisted Miss Paris from the roadster and tossed his camel's-hair topcoat carelessly into the back seat.

“Don't leave your coat there, Ellery,” protested Paula. “Someone's sure to steal it.”

“Let 'em. It's an old rag. Don't know what I brought it for, anyway, in this heat.”

“Come on, come on,” said Phil Maguire eagerly.

From the press section at ringside the stands were one heaving mass of growling humanity. Two bantamweights were fencing in the ring.

“What's the trouble?” demanded Mr. Queen alertly.

“Crowd came out to see heavy artillery, not popguns,” explained Maguire. “Take a look at the card.”

“Six prelims,” muttered Inspector Queen. “And all good boys, too. So what are these muggs beefing about?”