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There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Год: 1943
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]». Краткое содержание книги:
But Charley Paxton whispered frantically to him: “Ellery, for Pete’s sake! Humor him!”
Mr. Queen nodded wordlessly.
Thurlow bowed, a not inconsiderable feat; but the action had a certain dignity. “Robert, I’ll meet you at dawn in front of the Shoe.”
“The Shoe,” said Bob stupidly.
Ellery caught a clairvoyant glimpse of the two brothers in the coming dawn approaching from opposite directions that ugly bronze on the front lawn, and he almost laughed. But then he glanced at Thurlow again, and refrained.
“Thurlow, for the love of Mike—” began Mac.
“Keep out of this, Maclyn,” said Thurlow sternly, and Mac glanced quickly at his mother. But the Old Woman simply sat, a porcelain. “Robert, each one of these weapons has one bullet in it. You understand?”
Bob could only nod.
“I warn you, I’ll shoot to kill. But if you miss me, or just wound me, I’ll consider my honor satisfied. It says so in the book.”
It says so in the book, Ellery repeated to himself, dazed.
“Dawn at the Shoe, Robert.” A huge contempt came into Thurlow’s penny-whistle voice. “If you don’t show up, I’ll kill you on sight.” And Thurlow left the dining room a second time, prancing, like a ballet dancer.
Sheila came running into a thickly inhabited silence. “I just saw Thurl go up to his bedroom with a little gun in his hand—” She stopped, spying the glittering nickel in Bob’s hand.
The Old Woman simply sat.
Charley got up, sat down, got up again. “It’s nothing, Sheila. A — joke of Thurlow’s. About a duel at dawn at the Shoe on the front lawn, or some such nonsense—”
“A duel!” Sheila stared at her brother.
“I still think it’s some weird gag of Thurl’s,” Bob said with a shaky smile, “although God knows he’s never been famous for a sense of humor—”
“But why are you all sitting here?” cried Sheila. “Call a doctor, a psychiatrist! Call Bellevue!”
“Not while I live,” said the Old Woman.
Her husband’s face waxed and waned, purple and white. “Not while you live!” he spat at her. Then he ran from the room, as if ashamed... as he had been running, Ellery suddenly knew, for over thirty years.
“You’re grown men, aren’t you?” The old lady’s mouth was wry.
“Mother,” said Mac. “You can stop this craziness. You know you can. All you have to do is say a word to Thurlow. He’s scared to death of you...” She was silent. “You won’t?”
The Old Woman banged on the table. “You’re old enough to fight your own battles.”
“If precious li’l Thurl wants a duel, precious li’l Thurl gets it, hey?” Mac laughed angrily.
But his mother was on her way to the door.
Sheila stopped her with a choked cry. “You never interfere except when it suits you — and this time it doesn’t suit you, Mother! You don’t care anything about the twins and me — you never have. Your darling Thurlow — that poor, useless lunatic! You’d let him have his way if he wanted to kill the three of us... the three of us!”
The Old Woman did not even glance at her younger daughter. She eyed Ellery instead. “Good night, Mr. Queen. I don’t know what Charles Paxton’s purpose was in bringing you here tonight, but now that you’ve seen my family, I hope you’ll be discreet enough to hold your tongue. I want no interference from strangers!”
“Of course, Mrs. Potts.”
She nodded and swept out.
“What do you think, Ellery?” Charley’s tone was brittle, ready to crack. “It’s a bluff, isn’t it?”
The twins stared at Ellery, and Paxton, and Sheila... but not Major Gotch, who, Ellery suddenly realized, was no longer among those present. The canny old goat had managed to slip out some time during the farce.
“No, Charley,” said Mr. Queen soberly, “I don’t think this is a bluff. I think Thurlow Potts is in earnest. Of course, he’s touched; but that won’t keep Bob Potts out of the way of a bullet tomorrow morning. Let’s put our heads together, the five of us.”
6
Ellery Betrays the Code of Duello
“The steps we can take,” said Ellery without excitement, “are legion, but they have a common drawback — they involve the use of force. Thurlow can be arrested on some picturesque charge — there may be an old statute on the law books which forbids the practice of dueling, for example. Or he might be charged with threatening homicide. And so on. But he’d be out on bail — if I read your mother correctly — before he was fairly in the clink, and moreover he’d be smarting under a fresh ‘injustice.’ Or we could ship him off to Bellevue for observation. But I doubt if there are sufficient grounds either to keep him there or put him away in a mental hospital... No; can’t be force.”
“Bob could duck out of town,” suggested Mac.
“Are you kidding?” growled his twin.
“Besides, Thurlow would only follow him,” said Sheila.
“How about humoring him?” Charley scowled.
Ellery looked interested. “What do you mean exactly?”
“Why not go through with the duel, but pull its teeth?”
“Charley... that’s it!” cried Sheila.
“Fake it?” frowned Bob.
“But how, Charley?” asked Mac.
“Thurlow said he’d be satisfied if each man fired a single shot, didn’t he? In fact, he said each gun was loaded with just one bullet. All right. Let each man fire one cartridge apiece tomorrow morning, but see that those cartridges are blank.”
“The legal mind,” moaned Ellery. “These simple solutions! Charley, you’re a genius. My hand, sir.”
They shook hands solemnly.
“I knew I’d fallen in love with a Blue Plate special,” laughed Sheila. She kissed Charley and then put her arms about her twin brothers.
“What d’ye think, Bob?” asked Mac anxiously.
The intended victim grinned. “To tell the truth, Mac, I was frightened blue. Yes, if we substitute blank cartridges for the real ones in the two guns, old Nutsy’ll never know the difference.”
Sheila was to decoy Thurlow into the library at the rear of the house, on the ground floor, and keep him there while the men did the dirty work.
“The real dirty work’s my assignment,” said Sheila darkly. And she sallied forth to find Thurlow.
Mac volunteered to stand guard at the outpost. Ellery and Charley, it was agreed, must do the actual deed. Bob was to stay out of everything.
Within ten minutes Mac was back with a report, his blue eyes glittering. He had seen Thurlow and Sheila come down from upstairs, chatting earnestly. They had gone into the library. Sheila had shut the door, winking at the hidden twin that all, so far at any rate, went well.
Ellery stood musing. “Bob — can you shoot a revolver?”
“If you show me the place where the blame thing goes off.”
“Ouch,” said Mr. Queen. “Can Thurlow?”
“He can shoot,” said Mac shortly.
“Oh, my. In that case, this mustn’t fail. Charley, where’s The Purple Avenger’s lair?”
The twins sped upstairs to their room. Charley Paxton and Ellery followed, and Charley led the great man to one of the numerous doors studding the upper hall.
“Thurlow’s?”
Charley nodded, looking around uneasily.
Ellery listened for a moment. Then, boldly, he went in. He stood in a tall and pleasant sitting room, profuse with fresh flowers and easy-chairs and books, and furnished with surprising good taste. Aside from a rather sexless quality, the room was cloistered and fragrant peace for anyone.