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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:
“But I thought you wanted—” began Charley, as Ellery turned back into the house.
“No,” growled Ellery. “It wouldn’t do any good. Leave Horatio alone with his kites and his picaresque books and his gingerbread house. He’s too immersed in the fairy tale he’s living to be of any terrestrial use in the investigation of such a grown-up everyday business of murder.
“Strangest case I’ve ever seen,” complained Ellery as they strolled back to the foyer. “Usually you get somewhere in questioning the people in an investigation. If they don’t tell the truth, at least they tell lies, which are often more revealing than truths. But in this Potts fantasy — nothing! They don’t even know what you’re talking about. Their answers sound like Esperanto. First time in my life I’ve felt completely disheartened in such an early stage.”
Now you know why I want to get Sheila out of here,” said Charley quietly.
“I certainly do.” Ellery stopped short. “Now what’s that?”
They were at the foot of the spiral staircase. Somewhere beyond the upper landing raged a bedlam of thumpings, yells and cracking furniture. There was nothing playful in these sounds. If murder was not being committed upstairs, it was at the very least assault and battery with murderous intent.
Ellery took the staircase in rejuvenated bounds: violence was an act, and acts are measurable; something had broken out into the open at last... A little way down the foyer, Major Gotch thrust a startled head out of the study. Seeing the two young men speed upstairs, and hearing the noise, the Major thundered out, tightening his belt.
Ellery followed his ears; they led him to Maclyn Potts’s room.
Mac and his eldest brother were rolling over and over on the bedroom floor, bumping into the twin beds, in the debris of the overturned and splintered night table and its lamp. Mac’s shirt was torn and there were four angry parallel gouges on his right cheek all bleeding. Thurlow’s cheeks were gory, already turning purple in splotches. Both were screaming curses as they wrestled; and each was quite simply trying to kill the other with his bare hands. Mac, being younger, hard, and quicker, was closer to his objective. Thurlow looked forlorn.
Ellery plucked the younger man from the floor and held him fast; Charley pounced on Thurlow. Thurlow’s little eyes were shooting jets of hate across the disordered bedroom through swollen blackening lids.
“You killed my brother!” shouted Mac, struggling in Ellery’s arms. “You killed him in cold blood and I’ll make you pay for it, Thurlow, if I have to go to the Chair!”
Thurlow deliberately rolled over, avoiding Charley Paxton’s frantic clutch, and scrambled to his feet. He began to paw his baggy tweeds with blind, bleeding strokes.
Sheila and her father ran in, brushing Major Gotch aside. The Major had chosen to remain a spectator.
“Mac, what’s happening?” Her eyes widened. “Did he—” Then Sheila sprang at Thurlow, and he cringed. “Did you try to kill my brother Mac, too?” she shrieked. “Did you?”
“Mac, y-your face,” stammered his father. “It’s all b-bloody!”
“His damned womanish fingernails,” panted Mac. “He doesn’t even fight like a man, Pop.” He pushed Ellery away. “I’m all right, thanks.”
Thurlow uttered a peculiar sound. Where his face was not puffed and stained, it was deadly white. His fat cheeks sucked in and out nervously; he kept trying not to lick his cracked lips. There was intense pain on his face. Slowly Thurlow took a handkerchief from his hip pocket, slowly unfolded it, grasped it by one corner and walked over to his brother. He flicked the handkerchief across Mac’s wounded cheek.
As in a dream, they heard his voice.
“You’ve insulted me for the last time, Maclyn. I’ll kill you just the way I killed Robert. This can only be wiped out in blood. Meet me at the Shoe tomorrow at dawn. I’ll get two more guns — they’ve taken all of mine. Mr. Queen, will you do me the honor of acting for me once again?”
And, before they could recover from their astonishment, Thurlow was gone.
“I’ll meet you!” Mac was roaring. “Bring your guns, Thurlow! Bring ’em, you murdering coward!”
They were holding him down forcibly-Ellery, Charley, Major Gotch. Steve Potts had dropped into a chair, to look at his writhing son without hope.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Mac. Stop it, now. Daddy, do something. Charley... Mr. Queen, you can’t let this happen again. Oh God,” Sheila sobbed, “I’m going mad myself...”
Her terror brought Mac to his senses. He ceased struggling, shook off their arms. Then he twisted to lie prone on his bed, face in his hands.
Ellery and Charley half-carried Sheila into the hall. “That maniac — he’ll kill my Mac,” she wept. “The way he killed Bobby. You’ve got to stop Thurlow Mr. Queen. Arrest him — something!”
“Stop your hysterics, Sheila. Nothing’s going to happen. There won’t be another duel. I promise you.”
When Charley had led Sheila off, still crying, Ellery stood for a moment outside Mac’s room. Steve Potts was trying to soothe his son in an ineffectual murmur. Major Gotch’s brassy voice was raised in a reminiscence half biography and half advice, and concerned a Borneo incident in which the artful use of knee and knife had saved his younger, more valuable life.
From Mac, silence.
Ellery ran his hand desperately through his hair and hurried downstairs to telephone to his father.
14
Mac Solves the Mystery
The old woman suffered a heart attack that evening. For a few moments Ellery suspected malingering. But when Dr. Innis, hastily summoned, took over, and Ellery permitted himself an oral expression of his cynicism, without a word the physician handed him the stethoscope. What Ellery heard through those sensitive microphones banished all suspicions and gave him a respect for Dr. Innis he had not had before. If the Pasteur of Park Avenue had kept this wheezing, stopping, skipping, racing organ from ceasing to function altogether, then he was a very good man indeed.
Cornelia Potts lay gasping high on pillows. Her lips were cyanosed and her eyes, deeply socketed, in agony. With each breath she flung herself upward, as if to engulf the elusive air with her whole body.
Dr. Innis busied himself with hypodermics under Ellery’s eye. After a few minutes, seeing the Old Woman’s struggles for breath subside a little, he left on tiptoe. Outside the Old Woman’s door he found Detective Flint.
“Old Woman kick the bucket?” Flint inquired with a hopeful inflection. When Ellery shook his head, Flint shook his. “Got a message for you from the Sarge. He’s tailing Thurlow.”
“Thurlow’s left the house?” Ellery said quickly.
“A couple of minutes ago. Sergeant Velie’s hangin’ on to his tail like a tick, though.”
“I suppose Thurlow’s in quest of two more revolvers,” mused Ellery. “Let me know when he gets back, will you, Flint?” He went into Mac’s room. Major Gotch had vanished for some hole of his own in the vast building, but Stephen Potts was hovering over his son’s bed, and Sheila and Charley Paxton.
“I don’t know what you’re all hanging around me for,” Mac was saying listlessly as Ellery came in. The twin of dead Robert lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m fine. Don’t treat me as if I were a baby. I’m all right, I tell you. Pop, go to bed. Let me alone. I want to sleep.”