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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:
“Mac, you’re planning to do something foolish.” Sheila held tightly to her brother’s hand.
“He wants a duel, he’ll get a duel.”
Old Steve made washing motions with his gnarled hands.
Ellery said: “Did you people know that Mrs. Potts has had a heart attack?”
It was cruel, but informative. Perhaps not so cruel, considering the startled hope that sprang into those faces, and the slow turn of Mac’s head.
Sheila and her father ran out.
It took Charley and Ellery until past midnight to get Mac Potts to sleep. By the time they left his room and shut the door softly, Cornelia Potts not far along the hall was also in a deep sleep. They met Sheila and her father coming wearily out of the Old Woman’s apartment with Dr. Innis.
“Condition’s improved,” said the doctor briefly. “I think she’ll pull through this one. Amazing woman. But I’ll stay here for another hour or so, anyway.” He waved and returned to his patient.
Ellery sent Sheila and Stephen Potts to bed. They were both exhausted. Charley, who looked in hardly better case, commandeered a spare room, recommended that Ellery do the same, and trudged off after Sheila.
Mr. Queen was left alone in the upper hall. He spent much time there, smoking cigarets and pacing before the silent row of doors.
At 1:10 A.M. Thurlow Potts came home. Ellery heard him tottering upstairs. He dodged into the entrance to the turret staircase; Thurlow passed him, lurching. The elder Potts was toting a badly wrapped package. He meandered down the hall and finally wandered into his own rooms.
A moment later Sergeant Velie came upstairs, softly.
“Guns, Sergeant?”
“Yeah. Scared up some old bedbug in a hockshop down on West Street who sold ’em to him.” Velie kept his eye on Thurlow’s door. “Two big babies. I couldn’t go in and find out what they were or I would a lost my bedbug. They looked heavy enough to sink a sub.”
“Why so late?”
“He stopped into a row of gin mills on his way back. Got tanked to the eyeballs. For a little guy he sure can lap it up.” The Sergeant chuckled. “Mr. Thurlow Potts ain’t doin’ any dueling tonight. I can tell you that. This is one that gets slept off, brother, unless he’s been kiddin’ me.”
“Good work, Velie. Wait till he falls asleep. Then go in there and take that package away from him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ten minutes later Sergeant Velie slipped out of Thurlow’s apartment with the poorly tied package in his arms.
“Beddy-by,” grinned the Sergeant. “Flopped on his flop with his clothes on, and he’s snorin’ away like a water buffalo. What do I do now?”
“Give me the package for one thing,” replied Ellery, “and for another get some sleep. Tomorrow I think, will be a large fat day.”
Velie yawned and went downstairs. Ellery saw him stretch out in a plush chair in the foyer, tip his hat over his eyes, fold his hands on his hard stomach; heard him settle back with voluptuous sighs.
Ellery opened the package. It contained two colossal revolvers, single-action Colt.45’s, the weapon that played so important a role in the winning of the West. “Six-shooters, by thunder!” He hefted one of the formidable guns and wondered how Thurlow had ever expected to handle it: its shape and the size of its grip were adapted for big brawny hands, not the pudgy little white hands of the Thurlow Pottses of this world. Both guns were loaded.
Ellery retied the package, placing it at his feet, and curled up on the top step of the spiral staircase.
At 2:30 Dr. Innis emerged from the Old Woman’s apartment, yawning. “She’ll sleep through the night now, Mr. Queen. This last hypo injection would put an elephant to sleep. ’Night.”
“Good night, Doctor.”
“I’ll be back first thing in the morning. She’s in no danger.” Dr. Innis trudged downstairs and disappeared.
Ellery rose, clutching Thurlow’s newest arsenal, and made a noiseless tour of the floor. When he had satisfied himself that everyone was asleep, or at least in his room, he hunted up an empty bedroom on the top floor, flung himself on the bed with his arms about Thurlow’s package, and fell instantly asleep.
At six o’clock sharp, in the red-gold of a charming lawn, Thurlow Potts dashed out of the Potts Palace and paced down the steps to the Shoe. He stopped short. A delegation awaited him.
Inspector Queen, Sergeant Velie, Sheila and her father, Charles Hunter Paxton, a half-dozen plainclothes men, and Ellery Queen.
“My guns!” Thurlow saw the package in Ellery’s hands, beaming with relief. “I was so alarmed,” he said, wiping his forehead with a silk handkerchief. “But I might have known as my second you’d take care of everything, Mr. Queen.”
Mr. Queen did not reply.
“Is everything ready for the duel, gentlemen?”
Inspector Queen spat out the end of his first cheroot of the day. “There’s going to be no duel, Mr. Potts. Understand that? I’ll repeat it for your benefit. There’s going to be no duel. Your dueling days are over. And if you want to argue about it, there are plenty of judges available. Now how about it? Will you settle this fight with your brother sensibly or do I swear out a warrant for your arrest?”
Thurlow blinked.
“Ellery, get this boy Mac down here. You said last night over the phone he’d threatened to kill Thurlow. Get him down here and we’ll settle this foolishness once and for all.”
Ellery nodded and went back into the house. It was quiet; no servants stirred as yet; Dr. Innis had arrived fifteen minutes before and gone into Cornelia Potts’s room with the same heavy tread which had carried him out of the house a few hours earlier.
Ellery went to Mac’s door. It was a silent door.
“Mac?”
There was no answer. He opened the door.
Mac was lying on his back in bed, covered to the chin, a very peaceful young man. His eyes were open.
But Mr. Queen’s eyes were open, too — wide. He ran over to the bed and pulled back the cover.
Some time during the night Maclyn Potts had solved the mystery of his brother’s death. For his brother’s murderer had visited him here, and he had looked with those staring eyes upon that creature, and that creature had left behind a hard reflection of his nature — a bullet in Mac’s heart.
Ellery stood still, his heart pounding. He felt himself growing enraged. And then a coldness settled down on him. His eyes narrowed. The pillow on which Mac’s head rested showed powder burns and one bullet hole.
There were some strange marks on Mac’s face — long thin blue marks. As if the second twin had been whipped.
On the empty bed of departed Robert there stood a bowl of gold-spotted liquid. Ellery sniffed it, touched its bland surface with a cautious finger tip. It was cold chicken broth.
He looked around. The door through which he had just come... A little behind it lay a crop, a crop such as horsemen use to whip their mounts. And, near it, a small revolver with a familiar look.
Part Three
15
And Whipped Them All Soundly and Put Them to Bed
Dr. Samuel Prouty, Assistant Medical Examiner of New York County, squinted past his fuming cigar at the body of Maclyn Potts and said through his stained teeth: “I’ve seen a lot of monkey business but the Potts madness passeth understanding. I can’t even bellyache any more. It’s too fascinating.”