There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]

10

The Mark of Cain

The wake is quite all for the living, and no man eats more heartily than the butcher.

Ellery suddenly found himself craving sustenance. He was rested by his nap, Robert Potts lay irrevocably downtown on Dr. Prouty’s autopsy table, and Mr. Queen was hungry, hungry. He beat a path to the dining room, one eye out for a servant; but the first living soul he met was Detective Flint, hurrying through the foyer toward the front door.

“Where’s the Inspector, Mr. Queen?”

“Outside. What’s wrong now, Flint?”

“Wrong!” Detective Flint mopped his face. “Inspector says ‘Flint, keep an eye on this Horatio Potts,’ he says. “The one that lives in that pink popcorn shack in the court,’ he says. ‘I don’t cotton to that billygoat,’ he says, ‘and a guy who’ll play marbles at his age’d slip a live cartridge into his brother’s rod just out of clean, boyish fun,’ he says. ‘Probably like to hear ’em pop good and loud,’ he says—”

“Spare me,” said Mr. Queen. “I’m a starving man. What’s the matter?”

“So I watch Horatio,” said Detective Flint. “I watch and I watch till my eyes are fallin’ out of my head, and what do I see?” Flint paused to mop his face again.

“Well, well?”

“His brother’s layin’ downstairs dead, see? Young guy, everything to live for — dead. Murder. House full of cops. Hot hell let loose. Does Horatio get scared?” demanded Detective Flint. “Does he go around bitin’ his nails? Does he dive into bed and pull the covers over his yap? Does he cry? Does he make with the hysterics? Does he yell he’s gonna get revenge on whoever the bloody murderin’ killer was who—”

Ellery moved off.

“Wait!” Flint hurried after him. “I’m gettin’ to it, Mr. Queen.”

“And so is starvation to me,” said Mr. Queen gently.

“But you don’t get it. What does Big Brother Horatio — cripes, what a name! — do? He sits himself down at his desk in that Valentine’s box he built himself back there in the garden and he says to me — friendly, see? ‘Sir,’ he says ‘sir, this gives me a honey of an idea for a new kiddy book,’ he says. ‘There is somethin’ uny... uny—’ ”

“Versal,” said Ellery, perking up.

“That’s it — ‘unyversal in the manly code of punk-something or other’ — I didn’t get the word, but it sounded like Spick talk — ‘and anyway,’ he says, ‘it’s always a good theme for a child’s work,’ he says, ‘so I’m gonna sit me down with your permission, sir, of course,’ he says, ‘and I’m gonna make some notes on a swashbucklin’ Stevensonian romance for boys of the early teen age,’ he says, ‘based on two brothers who fight a dool to the death,’ he says, and I’m a shyster lawyer if that big slob don’t pick up one of them chicken feathers he writes with and start in writin’ away like his life depends on it. Then he stops writin’ and looks at me. ‘Seventeenth century, of course,’ he says. And he writes again. And again he stops and looks at me. ‘You’ll find apples and preserved ginger and cookies in the cupboard, Mr. Flint,’ he says to me.” Detective Flint looked around cunningly. “Do you s’pose the wack did it to get material for a book?” he whispered. “That’s what I gotta tell Inspector Queen. It’s a theory, Mr. Queen, you can’t break down!”

“You’ll find the oldest living iconoclast out front,” sighed Mr. Queen; and he hastened on.

Sheila and Charley Paxton were seated in the dining room pecking at a salad luncheon.

“No, don’t go,” said Sheila quickly.

“I wasn’t intending to,” Ellery came in. “Not with food so near.”

“Oh, dear. Cuttins!” The long-shanked butler materialized, trembling. “Cuttins,” said Sheila in a deadly voice, “can’t decide whether to quit our service or stay, Mr. Queen. Suppose you tell him what the situation is.”

“The situation,” said Mr. Queen, impaling Cuttins on his glance, “is that this house and everyone in it are under surveillance of the police, Cuttins, and since you can’t very well skip out without a police alarm being broadcast in your honor, you’d be well advised to get me something to eat instantly.”

“Very good, sir,” muttered Cuttins; and he oozed rapidly out.

“I’m still punchy,” said Sheila vaguely. “I can’t seem to get it through my thick head that Bob’s dead. Dead. Not of pneumonia. Not hit by an automobile. Killed by a bullet from Thurlow’s gun in a duel. Such a s-silly way to die!” Sheila bent suddenly over her plate. She did not look at Charley Paxton, who sat stricken.

“Something’s happened between you two,” said Ellery keenly, glancing from one to the other.