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:
Ellery relaxed and sat down. “So late, Doctor? Mrs. Doorn has been dead for hours.”
Kneisel slapped the back of his neck absently. “I am something of a recluse here. In my laboratory there is a separate world. The scientific spirit...”
“Well,” said Ellery conversationally, crossing his legs, “I’ve always maintained that science is another form of Nihilism... You don’t seem overcome by shock at the news, Doctor.”
Kneisel’s soft eyes became suffused with a queer surprise. “My dear sir!” he protested. “Death is hardly a cause for emotion in the scientist. I am interested in the fatality, naturally, but not to the point of sentimentality. After all—” He shrugged, and a whimsical smile appeared on his lips. “We’re above the bourgeois attitude toward death, aren’t we? ‘Requiescat in pace,’ and all that sort of thing. I should much rather quote the Spaniard’s cynical epigram — ‘She is good and honored who is dead and buried.’”
Ellery’s brows rose instantly, much as the tail of a setter jerks to the horizontal in the perfect point. An animated humor, a light of anticipation, leaped into his eyes.
He said warmly, “I salute your erudition, Dr. Kneisel. You know, when the Coachman, Death, takes on his new and unwilling passenger, he sometimes, discharges another in order to balance the load... I refer, of course, to the vulgar institution of post-mortem bequests. There was something interesting about Abigail Doorn’s first will, Doctor...
“May I complement your quotation with another? — ‘He who waits for a dead man’s shoes is in danger of going barefoot.’ That,” he said, “is, curiously enough, from the Danish.”
Kneisel replied in a grave and pleasant voice, “And from the French, too, I believe. A great many aphorisms have common roots.”
Ellery laughed happily; he nodded with open admiration. “I didn’t know that,” he said. “I shall make a point of checking up on you. Now—” The Inspector chuckled.
“You no doubt wish to know,” said Kneisel with the utmost urbanity, “where and how I spent my morning...”
“If you will.”
“I arrived at the Hospital at 7:00 A.M., my usual hour,” explained Kneisel, folding his hands peacefully in his lap. “I went to my laboratory after changing into these clothes in the general dress-rooms in the basement.
“The laboratory is on this floor, diagonally across the corridor from the northwest corner of the Amphitheater. But I am sure you already know this...”
“Mais certainement!” murmured Ellery.
“I locked myself in and I was there until your man summoned me some time ago. I proceeded at once to the theater, according to your request, and there discovered for the first time that Mrs. Doorn had been murdered during the morning.”
He paused, holding himself uncannily still. Ellery’s glittering watchfulness did not waver.
When Kneisel continued, it was with serene emphasis. “No one disturbed me this morning. To phrase it differently, I was alone in my laboratory without interruption from a few moments after 7:00 until a short time ago. Without interruption — and without witnesses. Not even Dr. Janney appeared in my work-shop, probably because of Mrs. Doorn’s accident and his other work which accumulated as a result of it. And Dr. Janney invariably visits the laboratory every morning... I believe,” he concluded thoughtfully, “that is all.”
Ellery continued to transfix him with his stare. Inspector Queen, watching them both unwinkingly, was forced to make the grudging inner admission that, despite Ellery’s outward savoir faire, he had never appeared more discomposed.
The old man scowled loyally. He began to feel the stirrings of a vague but tempestuous anger.
Ellery smiled. “Perfect, Dr. Kneisel. And since you seem to know exactly what I intend to question you about, suppose you answer my next query without my asking it at all!”
Kneisel stroked his frumpy beard speculatively. “Not such a difficult problem, Mr. — Queen, I think?... You would like to know the nature of the research Dr. Janney and I have been conducting. Am I right?”
“You are.”
“The advantages of a scientific mental training are innumerable, you see,” commented Kneisel, good-humoredly. Facing each other and smiling with evident pleasure, the two men seemed like old friends... “Very well. Dr. Janney and I have for two and a half years — but no; it will be two years and seven months next Friday — been working on the development of a metallic alloy.”
Ellery replied with perfect gravity, “Your intellectual clairvoyance, Doctor, has not been sufficiently clair — if I may commit the sin of solecism in a highly modified form... I want to know much more than that. I want to know what the exact nature of this alloy is. I want to know how much money has been expended in experiment. I want to know something of your background, and something of the circumstances under which you and Dr. Janney formed this heroic scientific coalition. I want to know why Mrs. Doorn decided to discontinue her contributions toward the furtherance of your work...” He paused, twisted his mouth wryly. “I also want to know who killed Mrs. Doorn, but that, I suppose...”
“Oh, it is not a futile question, sir — not at all,” replied Kneisel with a faint smile. “My scientific training has taught me that all the analyst really requires for the solution of a problem is, first, the painstaking assembly of all the phenomena; second, exhaustive patience; and third, the ability to comprehend the whole problem with a fresh and unbiased imagination... But that is not answering your questions.
“The exact nature of our alloy? I fear,” he said courteously, “that I must refuse to divulge it. In the first place, knowledge of this phenomena in the array of facts would not help you to a solution of the crime. In the second place, our work is a secret between Dr. Janney and me alone... I can say this, however: when we have completed our task to our satisfaction, we will have produced an alloy which will wipe steel off the face of the earth!”
In silence the District Attorney and his assistant exchanged glances, then turned back to regard the bearded little scientist with newly appraising eyes.
Ellery chuckled. “I won’t press you,” he said. “If you can replace steel commercially with a cheaper and superior alloy, you and Dr. Janney will become millionaires over night.”
“Exactly. That is the reason for the strongly built laboratory, the reënforced walls, the safe-doors, and all of the rest of our extraordinary precautions against curiosity or theft. I might say,” Kneisel continued with a trace of pride, “that our finished product will be considerably lighter, more tensile, more malleable, more durable and just as strong, besides being appreciably less expensive to manufacture.”
“You haven’t by any chance stumbled on the Philosophers’ Stone, have you?” murmured Ellery, with a perfect gravity.
Kneisel’s veiled gaze sharpened. “Do I look like a charlatan, Mr. Queen?” he asked simply. “Certainly Dr. Janney’s open faith in me and cooperation with me is a guarantee of my scientific integrity.
“I tell you,” and his voice rose slightly, “that we have perfected the building-material of the future! It will revolutionize the science of aeronautics. It will solve one of the big problems confronting the astrophysicists — an incredibly light metal building-material with the strength of steel. Man will bridge space, conquer the solar system. This alloy will be utilized in everything from pins and fountain-pens to super-skyscrapers... And,” he concluded, “it is almost an accomplished fact.”
There was a little silence. The words themselves seemed, in retrospect, utterly extravagant. And yet something in the sober matter-of-fact air of the little savant made them poignant possibilities.