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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:
Then Mac was buried in the family plot at St. Praxed’s churchyard. A section four blocks square was roped off for the ceremony, traffic was re-routed, and police cordons exercised their muscles.
Somehow Cornelia Potts, recovering from her heart attack in the big house, learned of her son’s death.
The first inkling that the Old Woman knew came on the morning of her son’s funeral. She sat up in bed and called for her maid, a woman almost as old as she, Bridget Conniveley by name, whom Dr. Innis detested. Od Bridget, who was a bent and sibilant crone, threw over the yoke of the Old Woman’s authority and telephoned Dr. Innis. Innis came rushing over, pale and stammering. It was impossible. He could not be responsible. She must be sensible. She could no nothing more for Maclyn. He forbade her to leave her bed.
To all this the Old Woman said nothing. She calmly crept out of bed and flayed Bridget with her tongue. Bridget scurried, cowering, to draw her mistress’s bath.
When the Inspector heard about it from the detective on guard outside the Old Woman’s apartment, his face glowed with a dark joy. “Mustn’t talk to her, huh?” he said to Dr. Innis. And he strode by into the Presence.
It was a short, bitter interview. The Old Woman spoke scarcely at all. What she did say was acrid and precise. No, nobody had told her. She just “knew.” And she was going to Maclyn’s funeral; the State Militia could not stop her. Get out and let an old woman dress, you fool.
The Inspector got out. “It’s a cinch little Thurlow spilled the beans to Mama,” he grunted. “What a bunch!”
Cornelia Potts was assisted from her Palace by Dr. Innis and Bridget Conniveley, wrapped in shawls, only the buttery tip of her nose showing. Her expression was one of gloomy interest. She shed no tears, nor would she gaze upon her son’s face before the mortician’s assistant closed the coffin.
At St. Praxed’s Ellery kept watching her with amazement. That aged heart, to whose stuttering and whimpering he had laid his own ear, seemed unmoved by the second death of a son within a week. She was built of granite, and sulphuric acid coursed through her veins... She did not glance at Sheila, or at Stephen her husband, or at Major Gotch, who looked pinched and confused this morning. She did not seem surprised that her other children were not present.
Back at the house, Bridget undressed her and she crawled into bed. She closed her eyes and asked Dr. Innis for “a little something to put me to sleep.”
And she fell asleep and slept restlessly, moaning.
“Well,” demanded the Inspector when it was all over, “where do we go from here?”
“I wish I knew, Dad.”
“You’re stumped?”
His son shrugged. “I can’t believe this case is insoluble. There’s sense in it somewhere. Our job is to spot it.”
The Inspector threw up his hands. “If you can’t see any light, I certainly can’t, Ellery. All we can do is keep a close watch on these people and follow up the few clues we have. Let’s go home.”
A few days after Mac’s funeral, Ellery Queen had two breakfast callers.
He was startled by the change in Sheila Potts. Her face seemed half its normal size, the skin gray; her blue eyes were darker and deeper blue and more liquid, their sockets underscored as by a paintbrush. She was in black, a pitiable figure of distress.
Charley Paxton looked thin and ill, too. And his eyes shared with Sheila’s that burden of anxiety which Mr. Queen had come to associate with the troubled ones of this world who find themselves caught in a tangle from which there is no escape.
The Inspector had been about to leave for his office, but when he saw the haggard faces of the two young people he phoned Police Headquarters to say he would be delayed and became mine host cunningly. “How’s your mother this morning?” he asked Sheila, with an elaborate expression of concern.
“Mother?” said Sheila vaguely. “About the same.”
Charley braced himself “Now you’ll see it’s all stuff, darling,” he said in a cheery voice. “Tell Ellery and the Inspector about it.”
“It isn’t stuff, Charley, and you know it,” Sheila said tiredly. “Sometimes you make me sick. I know I’ve done an awful lot of weeping and squalling, but I’m not a child — I can add. This adds up to more, and you know it. You see,” she said, turning to the Queens before Charley could reply. “I’ve been thinking, Mr. Queen—”
“Ellery,” said Ellery.
“Ellery. I’ve been thinking, and I’ve seen — well, a dreadful design in what’s been happening.”
“Have you? And what design is that?”
Sheila shut her eyes. “At first I was shocked. I couldn’t think at all. Murder is so... newspapery. It doesn’t happen to you. You read about it in a paper, or in a detective story, and it makes you wriggle with disgust, or sympathy. But it doesn’t mean anything.”
“That’s quite true.”
“Then — it happens to you. There are police in your house. Somebody you love is dead. Somebody you’ve been with all your life is... a fiend of some sort. You look at the faces around you, the familiar faces, even the ones you dislike... and you die yourself. Inside. A thousand times. It doesn’t seem possible. But there it is.
“And there you are... When Bob died I couldn’t believe anything. I was all mixed up; none of it seemed real. I just went through the motions. Then Mac...” She put her hands quickly to her face.
Charley reached out to touch her, but Ellery shook his head and Charley turned away to stare blindly out the Queens’ window at the quiet street below.
Inspector Queen kept his hard eyes on the weeping girl.
After a while Sheila groped in her bag and took out a handkerchief. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “All I seem to do these days is imitate a fountain.” She blew her little nose with energy and put her handkerchief away, sitting back and even smiling a little.
“Go ahead, Miss Potts,” said Inspector Queen. “This personal stuff is interesting.”
She looked guilty. “I don’t know why I wandered that way... What I began to say was — I’ve been thinking since Mac died. There have been two murders in the house. And who’s been murdered? Robert. Mac. My twin brothers.” Her blue eyes flashed. “Not one of Mother’s first husband’s three children — oh, no! Not one of the crazy ones. Only the Brents are dying. Only the Brents — the sane ones.”
Charley cleared his throat.
“Let me finish, Charley. It’s as clear as anything. We Brents are being killed off, one by one. First Robert, then Mac... then either my father or me. Charley, it’s true and you know it! One of us is next on the list, and if Daddy gets it, I’ll be the only Brent left, and I’ll get it.”
“But why?” shouted Charley, out of control. “It doesn’t make sense, Sheila!”
“What’s the difference why? Money, hate, just plain insanity... I don’t know why, but I know it’s true, as truly as I’m sitting here this minute. And what’s more, you know it, too, Charley! Maybe Mr. Queen and the Inspector don’t know it, but you know it—”
“Miss Potts—” began the Inspector.
“Please call me Brent. I don’t want ever to be called by that horrible name again.”
“Of course, Miss Brent.”
Ellery and his father exchanged glances. Sheila was right. It was what they themselves feared, a third murder. With even more reason: the missing automatic.
The Inspector went to one of the front windows. After a moment, he said: “Miss Brent, would you mind coming here?”
Sheila wearily crossed the room to stand beside him in the sun.