The Dutch Shoe Mystery
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Серия: Ellery Queen #3
- Год: 1931
- Язык: английский
- Год: Frederick A. Stokes
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Dutch Shoe Mystery». Краткое содержание книги:
The policemen pushed the three captives into the room. Joe Gecko was a lean, cadaverous individual with burning eyes and a preternaturally cartilaginous nose. Snapper was his direct antitype — small and cherubic, with rosy cheeks and full wet lips. Little Willie was the most sinister-appearing of the three: his bald, triangular head was covered with noxious brown-flecked skin; he was huge and bulky and flabby, but his nervous movements and uneasy eyes belied the promise of strength in his powerful frame; he looked dull, even stupid, but there was something loathsome and terrifying in his very stupidity.
“Pompey, Julius and Crassus,” murmured Ellery to Cronin. “Or perhaps it’s the Second Triumvirate of Mark Antony, Octavius and Lepidus. Where have I seen them before?”
“Probably in the line-up,” grinned Cronin.
The Inspector confronted the captives with a frown. “Well, Joe,” he said peremptorily, “what’s the racket this time? Sticking up hospitals? Where’d you find ’em, Ritchie?”
Ritchie looked pleased with himself. “Skulking around upstairs — 328 — a private room.”
“Big Mike’s room!” exclaimed the Inspector. “So you’re playing nurse to Big Mike now, hey? I thought you guerrillas were running with Ikey Bloom’s mob. Changed your luck, eh? Spit it out, boys — what’s the dirt?”
The three gunmen looked at each other uneasily. Little Willie uttered a hoarse, shy chuckle. Joe Gecko screwed up his eyes and slid back tensely on his heels. But it was Snapper, rosy and smiling, who replied.
“Jeeze, give us a break, Inspector,” he said, and the lisp in his mincing voice did not seem strange. “You got nuttin’ on us. We wuz on’y waitin’ for th’ boss. They been takin’ out his guts or somepin’.”
“Sure, sure!” replied the Inspector affably. “You’ve been holding his hand and telling him bedtime stories.”
“Naw, he’s a reg’lar,” said Snapper seriously. “We been hangin’ around his room upstairs. Y’know how it is — th’ boss layin’ there an’ there’s a lotta guys don’t like’m, sorta...”
Inspector Queen snapped at Ritchie, “Did you frisk them?”
Little Willie shuffled his gigantic feet spasmodically and began to edge toward the door. Gecko hissed, “Snap outa it!” and grabbed the big man’s arm. The policemen closed in and Velie grinned expectantly.
Ritchie said, “Three little gats, Inspector,” with satisfaction.
The old man laughed merrily. “Caught at last! And by the good old Sullivan Law. Snapper, I’m surprised at you... All right, Ritchie. They’re your meat. Take ’em out and book ’em on the gun-toting charge... Just a second. Snapper, what time did you men get here?”
The little gangster mumbled, “We wuz here all mornin’, Inspector. Just watchin’. Jeeze...”
Gecko snarled, “I tola you, Snap’...!”
“I suppose you don’t know anything about the murder of Mrs. Doorn here this morning, boys?”
“A bump-off!”
They stiffened. Little Willie’s mouth began to quiver, it seemed extraordinarily as if he were about to cry. Their eyes curled toward the door and their hands made jerky movements. But they remained mute.
“Oh, all right,” said the Inspector indifferently. “Take ’em away, Ritchie.”
The district detective followed the policemen and the shambling gunmen with alacrity. Velie shut the door after them with the light of a vague disappointment in his eyes.
“Well,” said Ellery wearily, “we’re still awaiting the no doubt slavering presence of Miss Sarah Fuller. She’s been sitting out there for three hours... She’ll need a hospital when she’s through, and I need nourishment. Dad, how about sending out for sandwiches and coffee? I’m famished...”
Inspector Queen gnawed his mustache. “Didn’t realize the time... How’s it strike you, Henry? Have lunch?”
“Well, I’m in favor of it,” announced Pete Harper suddenly. “This sort of work gets you hungry. Is it on the City?”
“All right, Pete,” retorted the Inspector, “I’m glad to hear it. And, City or no City, you’re elected. There’s a cafeteria on the next block.”
When Harper was gone, Velie ushered in a middle-aged woman dressed in black who held her head so rigidly and whose eyes were so fiercely intent that District Attorney Sampson muttered in an undertone to Cronin and Velie himself hitched more closely to her.
Ellery gave her no more than a passing glance as she entered. He saw through the open door a group of internes gathered about the operating-table on which the dead body of Abigail Doorn still lay, entirely covered by a sheet.
He stepped into the Amphitheater, gesturing to his father.
The Amphitheater was quiet now; it gave a queer impression of disorganization, of indecision. Nurses and internes strolled about, talking in broadly gay voices, deliberately ignoring the bluecoats and plainclothesmen who stood about, placidly watchful. And beneath all the talk there was a little note of hysteria that crept quietly along and then, suddenly, leaped out of a conversation, to be followed at once by a painful silence.
Except for the men grouped about the operating-table, no one looked at the outlined body of the dead woman.
Ellery stepped to the table. In the slight hush that followed his appearance he made a brief remark to which several of the young doctors nodded assent. He immediately returned to the Anteroom, closing the door softly behind him.
Sarah Fuller stood somberly in the middle of the room. Her thin, blue-veined hands were clenched at her sides. She stared with hard-pressed stony lips at the Inspector.
Ellery stepped to his father’s side. “Miss Fuller!” he said abruptly.
Her agate-like, faded blue eyes shifted to his face. A bitter smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “Another,” she said. The District Attorney cursed beneath his breath. There was something weird about this woman. Her voice was hard and cold and tight, like her face. “What do you want with me, all of you men?”
“Sit down, please,” said the Inspector fretfully. He shoved a chair toward her; she hesitated, sniffed, and sat down like a stick.
“Miss Fuller,” said the Inspector at once, “you’ve been with Mrs. Doorn for twenty-five years, haven’t you?”
“Twenty-one come May.”
“And you and she didn’t get along, did you?”
Ellery noted with a faint sensation of surprise that the woman had a pronounced Adam’s apple which jerked up and down with the vibrations of her speech. She said coldly, “No.”
“Why?”
“She was a miser and an infidel. Out of heart proceedeth covetousness. She was a tyrant. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. To the world she was the voice of virtue. To her dependents and retainers she was the breath of evil. Sufficient unto the day...”
This remarkable speech was accompanied by the most matter-of-fact tone. Inspector Queen and Ellery exchanged glances. Velie grunted and the detectives nodded their heads significantly. The Inspector threw up his hands and sat down, leaving the field to Ellery.
He smiled gently. “Madame, you believe in God?”
She raised her eyes to his. “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
“Nevertheless,” replied Ellery, “we should prefer less apocalyptic answers. You speak the God’s truth at all times?”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
“A noble sentiment. Very well, Miss Fuller. Who killed Mrs. Doorn?”
“When will ye be wise?”
Ellery’s eyes glittered. “Scarcely a reply upon which to base an arrest. Do you know, or don’t you?”
“The deed — No.”
“Thank you.” His lips quivered with inward amusement. “And did you or did you not quarrel with Abigail Doorn habitually?”
The woman in black did not stir nor change her set expression. “I did.”