Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951
- Автор: Кристи Агата, Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Год: 1951
- Язык: английский
- Год: Mercury Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951». Краткое содержание книги:
She was gazing in a fascinated way at Mr. Cronk, and had evidently just made some remark about him to her escort — the extremely fit-looking young man who was always about with her. As Mr. Cronk glanced up, they both dropped their eyes and appeared extremely disconcerted.
Almost immediately afterwards they rose to go. Mr. Cronk wondered why the girl had stared like that. Had she, like the Countess, remembered his face from a newspaper photograph?
As soon as he was outside the restaurant, the young man asked his companion the same question.
“I say, Pat, what was the excitement about? Why did you stare at the little man? I didn’t know which way to look when he caught us.”
“He had a crumb on his lip.”
“But, my dear girl...”
“And he looked lonely and pathetic. I was just thinking...”
“That you’d like to adopt him, I suppose!”
The girl laughed.
“Something like that. And then he went and caught me. Let’s have our coffee here on the terrace, shall we?”
She picked up an English weekly paper, and dropped into a chair. The young man became totally immersed in a copy of La Vie Parisienne.
Suddenly the girl exclaimed, “Why, good heavens, here he is!”
“Who?” said a preoccupied voice. “Our little man.”
“Well, don’t stare at him again.”
“I don’t mean himself, silly. I mean here’s his picture in the paper. And Philip — he’s — he’s a famous detective!”
“What?”
The young man dropped La Vie, leaned across, and studied Mr. Cronk’s portrait — a much better one than any that had appeared in the daily Press. He burst into laughter.
“Poor lonely little fellow with a crumb on his lip,” he mocked. “And he turns out... Pat, you’ll have to keep your maternal instincts in better order.”
“Look out — here he comes!”
Mr. Cronk, still a prey to gloom, wandered out on to the terrace and sat down. After a moment he became aware that he had taken a seat opposite the fair girl and her escort; and further, that they were studying him surreptitiously under cover of their magazines.
Mr. Cronk did not look up again till he had finished his coffee. Then he threw a quick, casual glance at the girl. Her head was still bent over her paper, but he was in time to catch the flash of her eyes as they dropped to the page.
“I say, Philip,” she said, under her breath, “he’s watching us. D’you think he suspects us?”
“How can he?”
“Well, perhaps the hotel’s employing him, and he’s noticed that we’re not quite...”
The young man looked serious.
“By Jove, it is possible! Because there’s no doubt about it, Pat — what we’re doing is criminal, if you come to think of it.”
The girl stole another glance at Mr. Cronk, who looked away a second too late.
“He’s still at it,” she said. “Philip, I don’t like it. Let’s go and bathe, shall we? And if he goes on watching us, we’ll know!”
They departed in confusion.
Mr. Cronk, wondering what could be afoot, drifted across the terrace to the chairs they had occupied, and glanced idly at the paper the girl had been reading. It was lying open as she had dropped it, and the page showed an excellent likeness of himself.
Evidently they knew him for what; he was. But why should a nice-looking English boy and girl, with an air of wealth and well-being such as these had, be perturbed at finding a detective their fellow-guest? Were they perhaps not all they seemed? Mr. Cronk sighed heavily. He was learning by sad experience to distrust everybody.
And yet he had a strong reluctance to suspect these two. They were so well turned out — so clean!
After all, there might be some reason for their peculiar behavior which he had not thought of. He decided that he must keep an eye on them — without, of course, allowing them to suspect that he had even noticed them — and that in the meantime they were entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
This settled, he leaned back in his chair and sunned himself. And a clear young voice floated up from the garden below him.
“If that little detective is here on business,” it said, “I bet he is after us.” An indistinguishable murmur came in answer.
“Well, anyhow,” went on the voice, “you looked the picture of guilt yourself.”
Mr. Cronk peeped cautiously over the terrace balustrade. It was as he feared. The speakers were the tall, fair girl and her escort. They had now turned down the path which led to the bottom of the hotel garden and to the beach, and the girl’s voice was no longer audible.
But he had heard enough. Here was no more surmise. Here was proof. These two pleasant young people were up to something which it was Mr. Cronk’s duty to discover. And suddenly it was borne in on Mr. Cronk what that something was.
The fancy-dress ball, to which, it was rumored, all sorts of wealthy and fashionable people were coming! They were going to make a haul under cover of the masquerade. He must set himself to prevent them.
And so began a perfect orgy of vigilance in Plage-sur-Mer. Mr. Cronk, intent on his two young suspects, never dreamed that he was himself under constant surveillance in the hotel, or that when he took his walks abroad, muscular but inarticulate men with no foreheads prowled after him. The only thing he did notice was that one of the spade-bearded Frenchmen, meeting him in a deserted passage, looked at him in a meaning and (Mr. Cronk felt) a sinister way, and made an odd gesture of the hand. But bearded Frenchmen always had a slightly sinister aspect to Mr. Cronk. And all Frenchmen gesticulated by habit. He thought no more of the incident.
Pursuing his investigations, he soon made a significant discovery.
The young couple were not staying in the hotel at all.
They lunched at it, dined at it, danced at it, and used its bathing-place. They behaved in every way like ordinary guests. But when a change of clothes was necessary, or night fell, they slipped off unobtrusively down an unfrequented road.
Along this road Mr. Cronk tracked them. He was now a much more experienced shadower than of old, and managed to keep them in sight till they reached a lonely middle-sized villa standing in its own grounds just outside the village. The house was shuttered and had its blinds drawn, and was to all appearances quite uninhabited. He watched the young couple slip furtively in at the garden gate. Then, through the hedge, he saw them let themselves into the house by a side-door.
He continued his stroll along the road, the very picture of a casual holiday-maker out for a constitutional, and sat down on a sand dune near by. After a while the suspects came out again in evening clothes and, letting themselves out at the garden gate with the same stealthy air as before, took the road back to the hotel.
Mr. Cronk made a sudden bold resolution. There were no other houses near, and nobody seemed to be about. He would search the villa.
With infinite caution he crept in at the garden gate, found the side-door, and turned the handle. The door was unlocked and swung inwards at his touch. He listened tensely, but there was not a sound. He stepped inside.
It took him only a few moments to confirm his worst suspicions. The house belonged, it appeared, to one Lord Leconbridge. Only two of the rooms — the big bedroom at the front of the house and the kitchen — bore marks of occupation. The rest was untouched. The rooms lay dust-sheeted and ghostly behind their closed shutters.
Whoever these young people might be, and whatever their intentions, it was plain that they had no right to be living where they were living. He must get back to the hotel, and think this out. He let himself out again by the side-door.