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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:
“Why not?”
“Isn’t your practice suffering these days, Charley?”
“What practice? Thurlow has no suits to be pressed, and I’m not speaking sartorially. My staff is taking care of the routine Potts work. Wrestling with tax and state problems. The hell with them. I want Sheila.”
“Have another drink.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
The two men filled the Queen apartment with smoke, Scotch bouquet, and endless chatter about the Robert Potts murder. It was maddening how few facts led anywhere. Robert was dead. Someone had stolen into his brother Thurlow’s unoccupied room during the eve of the duel and had slipped a live cartridge into Thurlow’s Colt .25, removing the blank. Probably the cartridge had been filched from one of the ammunition boxes from Thurlow’s bedroom cache; even this was uncertain, for laboratory tests had failed to educe an unarguable conclusion. What had happened to the replaced blank cartridge was any man’s guess.
“Anything,” said Charley. “Down the toilet drain, or flung into the Hudson.”
Ellery looked sour. “Has it occurred to you, Charley, to ask how it came about that somebody made a substitution of bullets at all?”
“Huh?”
“Well, as far as the household knew, that Colt automatic in Thurlow’s bedroom the night before the duel was already loaded with a live cartridge. We know it wasn’t, because I’d taken the gun downtown secretly and had Dad slip a blank into it in place of the live ammunition. We know that; how did the murderer know it? Know it he certainly did, for he subsequently stole into that room, removed the blank Dad had slipped into the magazine, and put a live shell in its place. Any ideas?”
“I can’t imagine. Unless you and Sheila and the twins and I were overheard by someone when we discussed the plan in the dining room.”
“An eavesdropper?” Ellery shrugged. “Let’s drive over to the Potts place, Charley — my head’s useless today, and Dad may have turned up something. I haven’t heard from him all day.”
They found Sheila and her father at the Shoe on the front lawn, old Steve slumped against the pedestal in an attitude of dejection, while Sheila talked fiercely to him. When she spied Ellery and Charley Paxton, she stopped talking. Her father hurriedly swiped at his red eyes.
“Well,” smiled Mr. Queen. “Out for an airing?”
“H-hello,” stuttered Steve Potts. “Anything n-new?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Potts.”
The old man’s eyes flickered for an instant. “Don’t c-call me that, please. My name is Brent.” His lips tightened. “Never should have let C–Cornelia talk me into changing it.”
“Hello,” said Sheila stiffly. Charley glared at her with the hunger of advanced malnutrition. “If you’ll excuse my father and me now—”
“Certainly,” said Ellery. “By the way, is my father in the house?”
“He left a few minutes ago to go back to Police Headquarters.”
“Sheila?” said Charley hoarsely.
“No, Charley. Go way.”
“Sheila, you’re acting like a ch-child,” said Steve Potts fretfully. “Charley, I’ve been t-trying to get Sheila to forget this s-silliness about not marrying you—”
“Thanks, Mr. Pot — Mr. Brent! Sheila, hear that? Even your own father—”
“Let’s not discuss it,” said Sheila.
“Sheila, I love you! Let me marry you and take you out of here!”
“I’m staying with Daddy.”
“I w-won’t have it!” said old Steve excitedly. “I won’t have you w-wasting your young life on me, Sheila. You marry Charley and get out of this house.”
“No, Daddy.”
Ellery sat down on the grass and plucked a blade, examining it studiously.
“No. You and Mac and I have to stick together now — we have to. I won’t ruin Charley’s life by mixing him up in our troubles. I’ve made my mind up.” Sheila whirled on Charley. “I wish Mother’d discharge you, get another lawyer, or something!”
“Sheila, you’re not going to get rid of me this way,” said young Paxton in a bitter tone. “I know you love me. That’s all I give a hoot about. I’ll stick around, I’ll hound you, I’ll climb ladders to your window, I’ll send you love letters by carrier pigeon... I won’t give up, darling.”
Sheila threw her arms around him, sobbing. “I do love you, Charley — I do, I do!”
Charles, the Unhappy, was so surprised he lost his opportunity to kiss her.
Sheila put her hands on his chest and pushed, and ran to her father and took his arm and almost dragged him off to the house.
Charley gaped.
Ellery rose from the grass, flinging the dissected blade away. “Don’t try to understand it, Charley. Now let’s scout around and see if we can’t come up with something.”
13
Thurlow Potts, Terror of the Plains
Something caught their eye, and they paused in the downstairs study doorway. There was the familiar game table in the center of the study, flanked by the two inevitable chairs; on the table lay the checkerboard; a fierce game was in progress. Major Gotch sat crouched in one of the chairs, his broad black chin on a fist, studying the board with aggressive eyes. The other chair, however, was unoccupied.
Suddenly the old pirate moved a red checker toward the center of the board. He sat back and smacked his thigh, exulting. But then he jumped from his chair, dodged round the table, and sat down in the opposite chair to fall into the same dark brown study over the board. He shook his head angrily, moved a black checker, jumped up, rounded the table again, sat down in the original chair, and with every indication of triumph jumped three black checkers, his red coming to rest with a bang on the black king row. The Major leaned back and folded his thick arms across his chest majestically.
At this point Mr. Queen coughed.
Gotch’s arms dropped as he looked around, his ruddy cheeks turning very dark. “Now, I don’t like that,” he roared. “That’s spying. That’s a sneaky Maori trick, that is. I mind mine, Mister — mind yours!”
“Sorry,” said Ellery humbly. “Come in, Charley — we may as well have a chat with Major Gotch.”
“Oh, is that you, Charley?” growled Major Gotch, mollified. “Eyes ain’t so good any more. That’s different. That’s a technical difference, that is.”
“Mr. Queen,” explained Charley mystified, “is helping to find out who killed Bob, Major.”
“Oh, that. Thurlow killed him.” The Major spat through one of the French doors onto the terrace, contemptuously.
“Thurlow merely pressed the trigger,” sighed Ellery. “There was supposed to be a blank in that Colt, Major Gotch. But there wasn’t. Someone substituted a live cartridge during the night.”
Major Gotch scraped his jaws. “Well, now,” he said. “Wondered what all the boilin’ and bubblin’ was. But Thurlow thinks he killed Bobby fair and square in that shenanigan.”
“I’m afraid Thurlow’s still a bit confused,” said Ellery sadly. “Major, did you kill Bob?”
“Me? Hell, no.” Gotch spat again, calmly. “Too old, Mister. Did my killin’ forty, forty-five year ago, round and about.” He chuckled suddenly. “We did plenty of it, Steve and me, in our day.”
“Steve?” Paxton looked skeptical.
“Well, Steve never had too much pepper for killin’, I’ll admit that. Sort of took after me, though. Looked up to me like a big brother. Many a time I saved his life from a brownskin’s knife. Never could stomach knives, Steve. Too much blood made him sick. Hankered after guns, though.”
“Uh... where did all this manslaughter take place, Major?” asked Ellery courteously.