![There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/2/0/2/3/there-was-an-old-woman-the-quick-and-the-dead-download.jpg)
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:
“I wish you’d make up your mind,” said his father irritably.
Ellery shrugged. “You’ve got to have more than theories to bring to the District Attorney.”
“Let’s get on with it, let’s get on with it!”
“All right, we’ll proceed on the rational theory. What comes to mind immediately?”
The Inspector said promptly: “We’re supposed to pin this on Horatio Potts. He’s writing a modern ‘Mother Goose.’ ”
Ellery laughed. “You saw that, you old fox.”
“Plain as the nose on your face. If this is the work of a sane mind, then Horatio is being framed for the murders of his two half-brothers.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Horatio being framed... why, the man hardly knows what’s going on!”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said Ellery, knitting his brows. “Horatio’s a good deal of a poseur. He knows lots more than he lets on. “
“Now what d’ye mean?”
“Just speculating, Dad. The man’s not a fool. Horatio has an unorthodox slant on life and a great cowardice where adult problems are concerned, but he’s aware of the score at all times. Believe me.”
“You’re no help at all,” grumbled the Inspector. “All right, score or no score, Horatio’s supposed to take the rap; we’re to think he’s behind all this. That means he isn’t.”
“Not necessarily,” said Ellery.
“Will you stick to one point of view?” howled the Inspector, now maddened beyond reason. His face was very red indeed. “Look,” he began again, desperately. “Certain things we know—”
“You wouldn’t be referring,” asked Ellery, “to the arithmetic involved?”
“Yes, the arithmetic involved! When all six children were alive, each one stood to come into five millions at the death of the Old Woman. Then Robert Potts was knocked off, leaving five. Now Mac’s gone, leaving four. Four into thirty millions makes seven and a half million apiece — so the murder of the twins means over two and a half million bucks extra to each of the four surviving children!”
“I can’t get excited over a mere two and a half million,” moaned Mr. Queen. “I doubt if anyone could, where five millions are guaranteed. Oh, well, I’m probably wrong. It’s your fault for having brought into the world the son of a poor man, Dad.”
Providentially, Sergeant Velie came in.
Velie tramped in to ease his two hundred and twenty-five pounds into Major Gotch’s favorite chair. He was yawning.
“Well?” snapped the Inspector, turning the wind of his fury on this more vulnerable vessel.
The Sergeant looked pained. “What did I do now? Don’t follow orders, get bawled out. Follow orders—”
“What order are you following now?”
“The ballistics check-up.”
“Well, what do you think this is, the gentlemen’s lounge at the Grand Street Turkish Baths? Report!”
“Yes, sir.” Velie rose with a noticeable lack of fatigue. “The Lieutenant says the gun found on the floor upstairs is the gun with which Maclyn Potts was homicidally and with murderous intent shot to death—”
“That,” said the Inspector, spreading his hands to Ellery, “is news, is it not? The gun is the gun. We’re certainly progressing! What else?”
“That’s all,” said the Sergeant sullenly. “What did you expect, Inspector — the Lieut should come up with the name of the killer?”
“Just what kind of gun was it, Sergeant?” interposed Ellery. “I didn’t get a good look at it.”
“It’s a Smith & Wesson .38/32 revolver, 2-inch barrel, takes an S. & W. 38 cartridge—”
Mr. Queen gave voice to a strangled exclamation.
His father stared. “What’s the matter? Sick?”
Ellery sprang to his feet. “Sick! Don’t you recall the fourteen guns Thurlow bought at Cornwall & Ritchey’s? Don’t you remember that you’ve accounted for only twelve? Don’t you remember that two guns are missing, that the missing guns are exact duplicates of the two used in the Bob-Thurlow duel — don’t you remember that, according to the store’s check list, one of those two missing guns is a Smith & Wesson .38/32 with a 2-inch barrel? And now you tell me the gun which shot Mac Potts to death last night is a Smith & Wesson .38/32 with a 2-inch barrel!”
After a long time the Inspector choked: “Velie, phone the Lieutenant at H.Q. and get the serial number of the gun in Maclyn Potts’s murder. Then phone Cornwall & Ritchey and get the serial number of the missing Smith & Wesson. Right away, please.”
Dazed by this politeness, Sergeant Velie staggered out. Five minutes later he returned with the information that the Smith & Wesson which had taken Mac’s life was the same Smith & Wesson that appeared on the check list as unaccounted for.
One of the two missing revolvers had been found.
“Clearer and foggier,” moaned Inspector Queen. “Now we know why the killer of Robert hid two of the fourteen guns Thurlow bought — to use one of ’em, the S. & W., for a second murder.”
“The murder of Mac,” put in Velie, the simplifier.
“That’s certainly the look of it,” Ellery mumbled. “But why did he steal and hide two guns?”
Sergeant Velie’s face fell. “You mean we ain’t through?”
“Of course we ‘ain’t’ through!” snarled his superior. “Two guns missing, one of ’em turns up in a murder, so what would the killer be doing with the other if he isn’t planning still another killing?”
“A third murder,” Ellery muttered. “Everything points to it. Not only the missing guns...” He shook his head.
“Then we got to find that last gun — the colt .25 automatic that didn’t turn up,” said the Sergeant with a groan, “or go fishin’ for dreams.”
“Not that finding the missing Colt would necessarily stop a third murder,” Ellery pointed out. “We have no Achilles here, and there are more ways of killing than by an arrow. But finding the missing Colt might uncover a clue to the person who secreted it. By all means search for it. And at once.”
“But where?” whined the Sergeant. “My gosh, we’ve turned this coocoo’s nest upside down, and not only the house but the grounds, too. It’s a pipe to hide a little bitty thing like that vest-pocket Colt in a square block of house and grounds! It would take twelve squads twenty-four weeks—”
The Inspector said: “Find that gun, Velie.”
16
And Then There Were None
But Sergeant Velie did not find that gun. Nor Sergeant Velie, nor Detectives Flint, Piggott, Hesse, Johnson, and company, searching at all hours, in odd places, under irritated or indifferent or astonished noses.
There were days of this fruitless exploration in the Potts mansion and on the Potts grounds, and while some interesting exhibits were turned up — a Spanish leather chest, for instance, buried behind Horatio’s cottage and filled with broad and crooked coins which Mr. Queen delightedly pronounced to be pieces of eight, at the disinterment of which Horatio went into a tantrum and howled that it had taken him years to gather an authentic Spanish “treasure” and a week of dark nights with an iron lantern and a cutlass between his jaws to bury it, and he wasn’t going to stand by and see a lot of cursed policemen spoil his fun — the duplicate Colt Pocket Model .25 automatic remained in the limbo of lost things. The cursed policemen tramped off on aching feet, leaving Horatio to reinter his pirate’s chest angrily.
Inspector Queen staged a mild tantrum himself, but for other reasons.