Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017
- Автор: Фузилли Джим, Харрис Шарлин
- Год: 2017
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 150, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 914 & 915, November/December 2017». Краткое содержание книги:
“Is the kitchen door open?” Eden swung round and peered across the hall. “Goodness me, so it is, you are absolutely right.”
“What access is there to your garden from outside?” Payne asked. Something had stirred at the back of his mind which he felt was important, though at the moment he couldn’t say what it was.
“There’s a door in the wall. It’s usually kept locked. Bent spent a fortune having a high wall built round the garden. That’s where the last of my money went. He feared for his life.”
“Can we go and take a dekko?”
“By all means.”
“Oh dear, our footprints will be everywhere. We may be destroying vital evidence,” Miss Fletcher said. “I wish I’d never come to Highgate! Don’t know what possessed me! And heaven knows where the beasts have gone!”
Once more they were following Payne.
“Where do you live?” Antonia asked.
“South Kensington. Normally I go to Kensington Gardens or Regent Park, but somebody told me it was good for the beasts to be taken outside their comfort zone. I left my car in Highgate Village...”
“I suppose your dogs have gone back to your car. You’ll probably find them there waiting for you.” Antonia tried to sound reassuring. “You passed by this house earlier on, didn’t you?”
“Yes... I didn’t see or hear a thing... apart from that terrible boy with the bike, that is.”
“That was later, wasn’t it?” Antonia remembered the boy’s extreme pallor and blood-red lips. He had brought to mind a young vampire. “We were together when he passed by.”
“Actually—”
“Yes?”
“I saw that boy earlier on too, outside the house, riding up and down the path, with no hands on the handlebars.” Miss Fletcher shook her head. “Showing off. Looking jolly pleased with himself. Highly dangerous, riding with no hands — but he seemed the kind that likes danger.”
The kitchen was in a shocking state of neglect. There were heaps of unwashed cups and dirty dishes everywhere, an unpleasant musty smell hung in the air, and as they entered, something black scurried across the floor. (A mouse? A giant cockroach?) Antonia gave a little gasp. Eden explained that they had had a cleaning woman but Bent had quarrelled with her and she had stopped coming. It was a relief when they got outside, though the garden was another sorry sight. Antonia caught a glimpse of a dilapidated deck chair among the weeds and a decaying straw hat perched on what had once been a balustrade.
There was a key sticking out of the door in the wall but the door itself, like the kitchen door, was gaping open.
“That’s how the killer must have got in and out of the house.” Eden Swann pointed and nodded. “The door must have been unlocked. Housekeeping is not exactly my forte... Bent used to check all the doors and windows but the pills he was taking for his anxiety were making him dopey...”
Major Payne looked at her. “Have you any idea who might have killed your husband, Miss Swann?”
“One of his former associates, most likely.”
“You mentioned threatening letters,” Antonia said. “That child business and the threatening letters. That tipped him over the edge. What child and what letters?”
“The child he killed, of course. It was a little girl called Pinkie, some such name. Bent was playing golf. We were living in Sunningdale at the time. Marvellous place. My money hadn’t run out yet. That was five years ago. Bent drove a ball onto the public path and it hit the little girl and killed her. It was an accident, though I had heard him say he sometimes felt like driving golf balls out on purpose — he got a tremendous kick out of scaring people. Anyway, the verdict was accidental death, though the child’s family weren’t happy. There was a mother and a boy, Pinkie’s older brother, who was twelve at the time. Apparently after the inquest, there was an ugly scene. The boy — who’d been very fond of Pinkie — very protective — actually went for Bent.”
“You mean he attacked him — physically?”
“Yes. I wasn’t at the inquest — Bent wouldn’t let me go — but a friend of mine went and she told me what happened. At first the boy was crying quietly but then he suddenly went berserk. He leapt at Bent and attacked him with a well-sharpened pencil he’d picked up from the jury table. He stabbed him in the left cheek, narrowly missing his eye. Bent had to go to the doctor’s to have the wound dressed. He was badly shaken. The guards pulled the boy away — but he kept shouting he would kill Bent. I kill killers — I’ll find you and I will kill you. Well, three days after the incident the first letter came and soon after Bent said we were moving house. We’d already moved house once before. We went all the way to Scotland. But the letters continued. Not letters, really. Single sentences.”
“What did they say?”
“I kill killers. Always the same thing, that single phrase. I kill killers. The messages were made up from letters cut out of newspapers. Some of them had been delivered by hand and pushed through the door, or left outside the front door, under a stone. It was driving Bent mad, I could see. Maybe that was the idea? He had had his plastic surgery, though that didn’t bring him any peace of mind. Then we moved house again — we went to Wiltshire — but the letters started again! Then we came down to London — we used to live in St. John’s Wood — we moved to Highgate only three months ago. But the letters kept coming.”
“Who did he think was sending them? The boy?”
“Of course it was the boy — his name was Dmitry, I think. I am sure it was the boy. The boy was playing a cat-and-mouse game with Bent... That’s what boys do... especially those who are off their rocker... Apparently Dmitry never got over his sister’s death... Went to one of those special schools. EBD? Last year I checked on the Internet. I found various stories about tragic Pinkie and her family... the Cunninghams. The boy Dmitry was apparently in and out of various institutions. He must be — what? — seventeen now? A teenager — the most dangerous age, isn’t that what they say? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out it was Dmitry who killed Bent in the end — having succeeded in reducing him to a nervous wreck!”
The boy. Antonia frowned... She felt a flash of excitement crackle through her... The boy on the bike...
She caught Miss Fletcher’s eye and she could see that the same idea had crossed Miss Fletcher’s mind as well.
Payne was frowning. “If it was the boy, it would appear that he knew every move you made and that he was familiar with each one of your addresses — but how is that possible? Did you say that some of the letters were delivered by hand?”
“Yes. It does sound incredible, doesn’t it?” Eden Swann flicked her tongue across her lips.
She’s lying, Antonia suddenly thought. She’s been lying from the very start. Either she killed her husband — or she knows who did... Two guns?
“It is incredible, yes,” Payne said. “It’s in fact impossible. Unless... unless someone kept tipping him off?”
“Perhaps he had contacts at the estate agents we employed?”
“I would consider that highly unlikely.”
“You talk like a criminologist.” Eden adjusted her frilly cap. “Are you a criminologist?”
“Why didn’t your husband tell the police about the messages if they bothered him so much?” Antonia asked. She was ashamed to admit it but part of her brain was already occupied with possible story titles. Murder on the Links? No, that had already been used. The Case of the Lethal Golfer?