The Scarlet Letters
- Автор: Куин (Квин) Эллери
- Серия: Ellery Queen Detective #24
- Год: 1953
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Scarlet Letters». Краткое содержание книги:
Who is pretty Mrs. Lawrence’s lover? And how can the young, rich Broadway producer be saved from the folly of her infidelity and the fury of her husband Dirk, the unsuccessful author who cannot control his morbid attacks of jealousy? These are Ellery’s major problems.
Beginning with a night rendezvous in the park and a punch in the jaw from Irate Husband, Ellery finds himself hot on the trail of an unknown Casanova... suspected lover, home-wrecker, and likely target for a .45. And making the trail all over the jungle of New York City — from Chinatown and The Bowery to the upper reaches of Bronx Park — are the tantalizing Scarlet Letters, an alphabetical puzzle that keeps Ellery — and the reader — cudgeling his wits to the very end.
Ellery has a special surprise for you in a case as sensational as the front page of tomorrow’s tabloid — the first appearance in a Queen novel of Nikki Porter as Ellery’s Girl Friday, that fiery, faithful, and long-suffering secretary of the Queen radio and short-story adventures. But THE SCARLET LETTERS is full of surprises, not the least of them the astounding pay-off of as exciting and clever a mystery as Ellery has ever gone a-hunting.
Mr. Queen would, and did, and on Friday Miss Loughman informed him that Fields had flown to Mexico City on a hot tip involving a well-known crusader for good government and a matter of a highly aromatic eighty-five thousand dollars, and no, she didn’t know when he would be back. He had said something over the phone about possibly having to hop over to Havana for a few days.
And Ellery ground his teeth down another millimeter and tried to console himself with the fact that Dirk Lawrence was working at a furious pace, with not a loud whisper of his jealousy disturbing the ménage.
Martha, too, was busy these days. She had completed casting of the Greenspan play and rehearsals had begun in one of the empty theaters on West 45th Street.
Van Harrison was not in the cast. All the roles were female except one, that of a boy of ten.
She was a thinner and quieter Martha, with a whip in her voice. One Broadwayite, after watching her run a rehearsal, reported at Sardi’s that “Martha’s found herself as a director. Something’s happened to her — thank God.” The memory of her first two productions was still bilious green in Shubert Alley. It began to get about that Martha had a hit in the offing, and everyone hoped emotionally that she might make back some of the fortune she had sunk in All Around the Mulberry Bush and Alex Conn’s stinker.
Still, Martha found time to slip away, in the fourth week of Leon Fields’s absence, to Jones Beach, where Ellery watched her somberly from the promenade through field glasses. She lay under a red umbrella with Harrison. Her bathing suit revealed a streamlined Martha, with all of the comfortable upholstery of her early marital years stripped away. She was almost thin. Ellery was not sure he liked her that way. A thin cherub sang no paeans. There was something sad about her figure.
Harrison was in a handsome bronze beach robe, his throat swathed in a royal-blue scarf. This concession to vanity was a matter of simple prudence; he would hardly put himself on exhibition before her against a foreground of all these hard flat young male bodies. But when Martha dashed off to plunge into the sea, he removed the robe, dropped robe and scarf under the umbrella, and lumbered into the water. Ellery followed him remorselessly with the glasses. Harrison undressed was a sight. His skin with its sunlamp tan was flabby, he had a paunch, the hair on his chest was gray, and his legs showed clots of varicose veins. While Martha dived and swam like a porpoise, Harrison paddled about dog-fashion, his chin rigidly above water. He had, of course, to keep his toupee dry.
Ellery entered all the facts in his little book, adding J to his alphabet and wondering why he was keeping the record at all.
And in the fifth week, with Fields in Miami — “He has a lot of friends down there among the permanent residents,” as Miss Loughman put it — Martha and her lover lunched at crowded Keen’s English Chop House on West 36th Street as if their love were licit.
“I can’t wait for Fields any longer,” Ellery told Nikki. “They’re getting more and more careless, and we can’t expect this sweet obliviousness of Dirk’s to last forever. I’ve got to tackle Harrison.”
It was a Sunday morning, and Ellery called Harrison’s Darien number with the gloomy confidence of a man entirely familiar with the weekend habits of actors. To his surprise, there was no answer. He tried again an hour later, thinking that Harrison might be sleeping off a Saturday night. But there was still no answer, and none an hour after that.
Then he remembered how the great Van Harrison was keeping his oar in, and he phoned Radio Registry, leaving his number.
His telephone rang twenty minutes later.
“Van Harrison speaking,” said the rich, pear-shaped tones. “I have a message to call this number. Who is this, please?”
“This is Ellery Queen.”
There was a silence.
“Oh, yes,” said Harrison pleasantly. “We met outside a tomb. What can I do for you, Queen?”
“I want to see you.”
“To see me? Whatever for?”
“Put your mind to it, Harrison. What are you doing today?”
“I haven’t said I’d see you.”
“Would you rather see Dirk Lawrence?”
“Not that,” moaned the actor. “Spare me, buddy. Of course I’ll see you. In hell, or anywhere you like.”
“Are you free right now?”
“I am not, Mr. Queen. I was good enough today to come to the aid of a friend of mine — poor wight — eking out his miserable existence as a director of radio dramas. Some idiot got the bellyache and had to bow out of tonight’s cast. Consequently I am in rehearsal, and I am calling from the studio during a ten-minute break. Now would you like to know what size bloomers I wear?”
“When do you get off the air?” asked Ellery.
“At seven-thirty.”
“Which studio, Harrison? I’ll meet you there.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. A young lady who thinks she’s an actress, and has convinced several directors of same while on an Ostermoor, is likewise in the cast of this dramaturgical turd, and since she resides in Stamford, I have contracted at great personal inconvenience to drive her home after the alleged performance. I scarcely think our conversation — yours and mine — will be suitable for a young maiden’s ears. I’ll be home about nine o’clock, Queen — I take it you’ve sniffed out where I live.” There was a contemptuous click.
Ellery was waiting outside the glittery Darien house when the red Cadillac convertible slid up the lane.
Harrison was alone.
He got out carefully and came up the stone steps bringing with him a fragrance of bourbon. He did not offer to shake hands. He began to fumble for a key.
“It’s my Jap’s day off or you wouldn’t have had to park on the lawn. Waiting long?” It was almost ten o’clock.
“It doesn’t matter.”
His hat had a dent in the crown and there was a smear of lipstick under his right ear.
“I couldn’t get away from the little bitch. Hottest thing since Hiroshima. I’m really put out with you, Queen. Come in.” Harrison touched a switch.
The living room was typical of the more luxurious Darien waterfront houses, big and arty and full of gleams on the side facing the Sound. There was a large terrace beyond, and an immaculate lawn going down to the slough. The lawn was set with wrought-iron furniture wearing a W. & J. Sloane look. A stainless-steel barbecue on wheels was drawn up under a grove of dogwood trees, and a portable bar littered with glassware and empty bottles.
The room was really two rooms with the common wall left out — a sunken living room and a dining room beyond on a higher level. There were brown beams showing adz marks, a magnificent fieldstone fireplace, and a precious-looking staircase marching up one wall. The furniture was California modern, rugged-looking pieces selected for their masculine air. The doweled wideboard floors were polished to a shine and covered with brilliant Navajo rugs. Everything looked expensive.
The walls were cluttered with photographs, most of them of a younger and leaner Harrison in portrait or costume, the remainder being of theatrical people, uniformly autographed to Harrison.
“Forgive the disorder,” said the actor, tossing his hat in the general direction of the dining-room table. “These are bachelor digs, and contrary to the popular conception of Jap servants, Tama is no bargain, as you can see. But he mixes a fabulous martini and he’s a wonderful cook. A drab wanders in twice a week and waves a cloth vaguely here and there to supplement Tama’s tireless lethargy. And now for a drink, if Gladiola, or Hyacinth, or whatever her foul name is, has seen fit to leave any in the bar. She was here this morning.”
“No one answered your phone.”