The Player on the Other Side (24 page)

‘It makes sense,' Ellery insisted. ‘Now that we have positive evidence that Walt's a mere tool, with Mr. Y — why couldn't he have called himself X! — with Y directing his every move, it stands to reason that Y watches Walt closely. When we let Walt go, Y had every right to smell a trap — to expect us to keep Walt under around-the-clock surveil lance. We can't afford to scare Y off; we have to force his hand; so no tails on Walt; and maybe Y will think it's on the level — that the Walt make was from hunger, and we saw it couldn't be he. After all, Y doesn't know we're on to those letters of his to Walt. By the way, has the clipboard been checked recently?'

‘Yesterday afternoon, by Johnson. He skinned up there while Walt was mixing a little cement to set a loose flagstone behind Emily's house. Nothing's changed.'

‘You're afraid Y's seen through us?'

‘Well, I just said it. Nothing's changed.'

‘I think we're pulling a successful deception play. Anyway, Dad, it's a chance we've got to take.'

The Inspector grunted and poured the breakfast coffee.

‘All right, I know how worried you are,' said Ellery. (‘Who, me?' said the Inspector with a hollow laugh.) ‘But look, there'd be even less sense to this mishmash if Percival weren't marked for slaughter, too. Well, we have Percival sewed up tight, haven't we? So there's really not much to worry about.'

‘Maybe we've got Percival sewed up
too
tight.' The old man snatched the marmaladed toast out of his mouth and shot a look ceilingward. ‘Lord forgive me.'

‘Amen!' muttered Ellery. ‘More toast, please.'

‘Maybe that's why this Y hasn't hit.'

‘Up to now, probably. Percival's led such an unpredictable life — he's ordinarily here, there, yonder and out all night to boot. Y studies his victims' routines and plans accordingly; our Perce hasn't had any routines. But now … now, suddenly, he's on time, he's in position.'

‘And how about that,' said the Inspector. ‘My boys still haven't got over it.'

‘Maybe there's been another Percival hiding out in that rotten hulk all the time, waiting for a chance to take over.'

‘Maybe.'

‘Anyway, the new Perce is bound to tempt Y into a move.'

They sat with their thoughts, munching toast and sipping coffee; Ellery thinking painfully of a girl so good she needed no salvation (and why
had
the pooch been named Beelzebub?), and of an evil man, about to be Croesus-rich, who had within him an ordinary and quite decent fellow aching to be born; and the old gentleman recalling the shy, laughing one peeping out from Miss Sullivan's weathered hulk.

‘Maybe,' repeated the Inspector. ‘But my innocent-eyed watchdogs are saying —'

‘Don't tell me, I know,' sighed Ellery. ‘They're saying it can't last.'

The Inspector shrugged.

‘It's very possible. Percival's the kind who turns over a new leaf in the way he's always done everything, to excess.'

‘According to the reports, he's been so damn punctual on that stamp job this week he makes the late Robert look like a slob. Now when Perce says he's going to be somewhere that's where he is. Except twice.'

‘Except twice?' Ellery put down his cup. ‘Except twice what?'

‘Except twice this week,' said the Inspector with the fretful guilt of the executive who accepts full responsibility for his subordinates' booboos, ‘when our reborn friend slipped away.'

‘What!'

‘Once,' nodded the old man, ‘he asked Archer for time off to go get his polio shot — his duty, he said, his
civic
duty, for Pete's sake! Archer was up to his ears and forgot to alert the man on duty; the man on duty didn't “expect” Percival to cut out and was sneaking a coffee break — and where
he
is now,' the Inspector interpolated grimly, ‘he doesn't have much expectation of
anything
. And the other night our boy slipped his leash — don't worry, we've plugged that one — and got back to York Square just as we were pushing the panic button. Apologized, said he went for a walk, didn't mean to cause trouble! It won't,' said Inspector Queen through his dentures, ‘happen again.'

‘It — had — better — not,' said Ellery. The moisture he wiped from his upper lip with his napkin was true fear-sweat. And he picked up a toast crust, looked at it, put it down and began to nibble on his thumb instead.

‘Well,' said the Inspector, shoving his chair back.

‘Dad, before you go.' Ellery shut his eyes and flapped his head like a dog drying himself. Then he opened his eyes and said, ‘Nothing new on the letters, I suppose?'

‘You mean from the lab? No, and they blew up those microslides as big as a barn door. Just Walt's prints, period. Why? Did you expect this Y to be careless about a thing like prints?'

‘No, but …'

‘But
what
?'

‘I was looking over those print photos yesterday — I mean the original set the lab took. There's something about them that's been bugging me.'

His father stared. ‘Go on.'

Ellery shut his eyes again. ‘I was sitting there, staring at them, trying to visualize Walt reading them, gloating over them — I mean the letters. Judging by the prints the lab brought out, he handled those letters a lot.'

‘Yes? So?'

‘Well, if you really
look
at those prints of his — the way they're distributed' — Ellery opened his eyes suddenly — ‘you have to see Walt holding the letters by the top corners. As if … well, as if he repeatedly held them up to the light, or something.'

‘If you mean hidden messages,' the Inspector said dryly, ‘forget it. They've been checked for that.'

‘I
know
. But why would he hold each page by the upper corners? With his thumbs? Because those upper-corner prints are all thumbprints. Why, Dad?'

‘If I thought I'd get an answer,' said the old man in a voice one part irascibility and one part perplexity, ‘I'd ask him.'

And this time he did get up from the table, because the phone rang.

Inspector Queen came back tautly. ‘We'd better hop to it. That was the post office.'

‘Post office?'

‘They have a letter down there addressed to Mr. Percival York.'

‘The same kind as —?' Ellery was twisted about in his chair. ‘A card-letter?'

‘A card-letter.'

26

Attack Culminated

He inserted the fresh sheet in the typewriter and, without hesitation in the special silence of the dingy hotel room, began to write with great speed:

My Dear Walt:

Here is your final task, the glorious culmination of all you have done for me and, through me, for yourself.

You will take the enclosed card and, with the usual care to get a clean impression with the rubber stamp and to center it on the card (and remembering that to be correct in this instance the diagonal edge of the card must be at the lower left) imprint the card with the proper stamp so that it looks like this:

Place it in the envelope, address it to Mr. Percival York at York Square and mail it at any time before midnight of the day you receive this.

On the following day go about your duties in the ordinary way. Do not worry about Percival York's keeping to his new work schedule. He will almost certainly stick to it.

When you are finished with your work on that day, go to your room. At exactly five minutes past eight o'clock you will step out of your room, ready to discharge your last great work for me.

Just outside your door you keep a foil-lined peach basket which you use for waste paper. Lift the basket. Beneath it you will find a flat package wrapped in white paper. Unwrap it quietly. Drop the paper and string into the basket. Take what is in the package with you.

By this time it will be dark. You will have left the light on in your room and the blind drawn. This is important.

You will then go down the stairs and slip out the side door of the garage. Do not concern yourself about the police; they are not watching you. But be careful not to be seen or heard by anyone. When you are satisfied that no one is in sight or hearing, go into the rear garden. Stay in the shadows while you step onto the terrace. Move without a sound to the French doors leading from Mr. Robert's study. You will then see Mr. Percival seated at Mr. Robert's desk with his back to you, still at work. Use what is in the package. You will know exactly how when you see it.

And that, My Dear Walt, will be the end of it. All you need do subsequently is let come what may. Things will happen quickly, but do not be afraid. You will remain unharmed, as befits the lord of all you survey. I, I say this to you.

Dispose of this letter as you have disposed of the others.

I do not say good-bye, as you will soon understand. I remain, My Dear Walt, as ever, and always.

Y

He prepared the white card and folded the letter, and inserted them in an unaddressed envelope and departed from his past procedures in other ways as well.

Among these unprecedented actions:

He strolled over to the street directly west of York Square and, using the apartment-house alley behind Robert York's corner, swiftly climbed the fence between the rear of the apartment building and the York garage.

He slid along the garage wall to the side door, entered the garage, shut the door silently, stood still for a moment listening, then in the darkness crept to the rear of the garage and up the narrow stairway to the landing before Walt's room.

He squatted here, and felt about to the left of Walt's door, and located Walt's peach basket waste container.

He raised the basket with infinite patience and slipped a flat small package wrapped in white paper under it.

He lowered the basket until it stood squarely on the package, concealing it.

He pushed the unaddressed envelope containing the new card and Walt's latest instructions through the crack between Walt's door and the floor.

He then rose and made a groping, noiseless retreat — down the stairs and out of the garage and along the garage wall and over the fence and through the apartment-house alley, to the street west of York Square.

He slept soundly indeed that night.

27

Open File

Ellery had himself let out of the cruiser a block from York Square and — by consuming gobbets of will power — he walked, did not run, to Robert York's house; rang, did not batter; and when the door was answered, spoke, did not shout. (The Inspector, meanwhile, like a stage manager on the afternoon of Opening Night, slipped anxiously behind the scenes to immerse himself in detail.)

‘Good morning, Ann, is Percival York here? Is he all right?' Ellery asked; and only when she frowned did he realize he had said it as if it were a single compound word in German. She rose to the occasion, however, for behind that exquisitely rippled brow was a quick mind; she nodded. ‘On time and working hard.'

Quietly she added, ‘Isn't it wonderful?'

Ellery entered and she took his hat. He could see, down the hallway, the patient bulk of the plainclothesman who waited by the stairs, and through the study doorway Tom Archer leaning over Percival York, who was seated at the desk.

Ellery nodded toward the double doors of the dining room, and Ann caught his meaning instantly. ‘There's no one there but Bub,' she said, and both opened the door and closed it behind them. The shepherd bitch lurched to her feet and padded over to them. She was developing into a splendid animal. Ellery let the puppy sniff his hand and then sought the sleek head, working his fingers around to scratch behind her left ear. Bub issued him a membership card.

‘What is it?' Ann asked him; and her trusting face sharply reminded him of another time he had requested an interview with her, and how it had hurt.

‘Percival's card is in the mail, Ann. The fourth card.'

She went quite pale. ‘How could you possibly know that?'

‘The post office, gentlemanly to the core, refused to let us intercept and examine his mail, but they did agree to watch for just this envelope addressed just this way, and to notify us before delivery. What time does the mailman get here?'

‘About ten. Oh, dear. This means someone is still trying … What are you going to do?'

‘Give him his mail.'

She put her hands together. ‘How awful.'

‘How awful what?' Ellery demanded. ‘Letting him get the card when we might spare him the shock? Or do you mean the shock itself is awful? Or this whole devilish business?'

‘I was thinking of Percival,' Ann said earnestly. ‘He's come so far. It's been fascinating to watch — how he pushed himself into this, into a work discipline, a hard schedule, regular meals and sleep. And suddenly you could see him light up as if two wires had touched to complete a circuit. Stamps stopped being what he used to call “nothing.” Now he holds a stamp with his tongs and it isn't colored paper to him any more. It's a messenger of ideas and feelings between people as well as history and geography and politics and so many other things. You know, for a while Perce was
angry?
In a how-long-has-this-been-going-on way? Ellery, I don't want him hurt. It's too soon. He's too — too
new.
'