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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:
“So?”
“So suppose the first Potts had come back in the person of ‘Major Gotch’? Mightn’t he come to hate his successor, the second Potts — no matter how fast their friendship had been in the atolls of the South Seas?”
“Aaaa,” said the Inspector.
“Mightn’t he come to hate the three additional children Cornelia and Steve Brent brought into the world? Mightn’t he resent the shares of Sheila, Bob, and Mac in what would seem to him his millions? Mightn’t he reason, too, that their very existence jeopardized the security of his own children, the Three Goons — Thurlow, Louella, and Horatio? And because of all this, mightn’t Bacchus Potts’ ‘Gotch’ brood and plan and finally go over the deep end and begin to eliminate those not of his blood? — one by one? — Robert, Maclyn, then Sheila, and finally Steve Brent himself? Don’t forget, Dad, if Gotch is Potts, he’s insane. Potts’s three children are proof enough of that.”
The Inspector shook his head. “I’m glad the Old Woman’s confession spared you the embarrassment of having to spout that theory!”
“The Old Woman’s confession...” echoed Ellery in a queer tone.
“What’s the matter with the Old Woman’s confession?” The Inspector sat up straight.
“Did I say anything was the matter with it?”
“Your tone—”
“It’s my gout, Father,” smiled Mr. Queen. “My gout? I must remember to take the waters.”
The Inspector threw a cushion at him. “And I must remember to send that will and confession back to Paxton. We’ve got photostatic copies for the files, but the pay-off is that Thurlow — Thurlow! — wants the confession for ‘the family records’!... Oh, son.” The Inspector stuck his head back through the doorway, grinning. “I promise not to tell a soul about that Gotch-is-Potts theory of yours.”
Ellery threw the cushion back.
For Ellery Queen the path of literature this morning was paved merely with good intentions. He scowled at his typewriter for almost an hour without pecking a word. When he finally did begin to write, he found the usual digital difficulties insuperable. He had developed a mysterious habit of shifting the position of his hands one key to the left, so that when he thought he had written the sentence: “There were bloody stripes on Lecky’s right elbow,” he found that it actually read — more interestingly but less comprehensibly — “Rgwew qwew vkiist areuowa ib Kwzjt&a eufgr wkviq.” This he felt would place an unfair burden upon his readers; so he ripped the sheet out and essayed a new start. But this time he decided that there was no special point to putting bloody stripes on Lecky’s right elbow, so there he was, back at the beginning. Curse all typewriters and his clumsiness with them!
Really ought to have a stenographer, he brooded. Take all this distracting mechanical work off his hands. A stenographer with honey-colored hair... no, red hair. Small. Perky. But sensible. Not the kind that chewed gum; no. A small warm package of goodies. Of course, purely for stenographic purposes. No reason why a writer’s stenographer shouldn’t also be inoffensive to the eye, was there? In fact, downright pleasant to look at? Like Sheila Brent, for instance. Sheila Brent...
Ellery was seated before his reproachful machine a half hour later, hands clasped behind his head and a self-pitying smile on his face, when the doorbell rang. He started guiltily when he saw who his caller was. “Charley!”
“Hullo,” said Charley Paxton glumly. He scaled his hat across the room and dropped into the Inspector’s sacred armchair. “Have you got a Scotch and soda? I’m pooped.”
“Of course,” said Ellery keenly. As he busied himself being host, he watched Charley out of the corner of his eyes. Mr. Paxton was looking poorly. “What’s the matter? Strain of normal living proving too much for you, Charley?”
Charley grinned feebly. “It’s a fact there hasn’t been a murder in almost a month. Tedious!”
“Here’s your drink. Why haven’t I seen you since confessional?”
“Conf— Oh. That day.” Charley scowled into his glass. “Hands full. Keeping the mobs of salesmen away from the Potts Palladium, as you call it. Handling a thousand legal details of the estate.”
“Is it as large as you estimated?”
“Larger.”
“I suppose a niggardly million or so?”
“Some pittance like that.”
“How’s Sheila?”
Charley did not answer for a moment. Then he raised his hollow eyes. “That’s one of the reasons I came here today.”
“Nothing wrong with Sheila, I hope?” Ellery said quickly.
“Wrong? No.” Charley began to patrol the Queen living room.
“Oh. Things aren’t going so well between you and Sheila — is that it?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“And I thought,” murmured Mr. Queen, “that you’d come to invite me to the wedding.”
“Wedding!” said Charley bitterly. “I’m further from the altar now than I ever was. Every time I say: ‘When are we going to take the jump?’ Sheila starts to cry and say she’s the daughter of a two-times killer, and she won’t saddle me with a murderess for a mother-in-law, even if she is dead, and a lot of similar hooey. I can’t even get her to move out of that damned house. Won’t leave old Steve, and Steve says he’s too decrepit to start bumming again... It’s hopeless, Ellery.”
“I can’t understand that girl,” mused Ellery.
“It’s the same old madhouse, only worse, now that the Old Woman’s not there to crack down. Louella’s filling it with useless, expensive apparatus — I swear she’ll blow that place up some night! — buying on credit, and of course she’s getting all she wants now that the Old Woman’s dead and the trades-people know what a lulu of a fortune Louella’s coming into.
“Thurlow’s lording it over them all — cock of the roost, Thurlow is. Sits at the head of the table and makes with the lofty cracks to Steve and Major Gotch, and is otherwise a complete pain in the—”
“As I was saying,” said Ellery, “Sheila baffles me. Her attitude strikes me as inconsistent with my conception of the whole woman. Charley, there’s something wrong somewhere, and it’s up to you to find out what.”
“Of course there’s something wrong. She won’t marry me!”
“Not that, Charley. Something else... Wish I knew... Might make...” Mr. Queen stopped guillotining his sentences in order to think. Then he said crisply: “As for you, my dear Gascon, my advice is to stick to it. Sheila’s worth fighting for. Matter of fact,” he sighed, “I’m inclined to be envious.”
Charley looked startled.
Ellery smiled sadly. “It won’t come to a duel at dawn, I promise you. You’re her man, Charley. But just the same—”
Charley began to laugh. “And I come here to ask your advice. John Alden stuff!” His grin faded. “Say, I’m sorry as hell, Ellery. Although as far as I can see, anybody’s got a better chance with Sheila than I have.”
“She loves you. All you have to do is be patient and understanding, now that the case is closed—”
Charley stopped pacing. “Ellery,” he said.
“What?”
“That’s another reason I came to see you today.”
“What’s another reason you came to see me today?”
Charley lowered his voice. “I don’t think the case is closed.”
Ellery Queen said “Ah,” and turned around like a dog seeking a place to settle. Instead, he freshened Charley Paxton’s drink and mixed one for himself. “Sit down, Brother Paxton, and tell Papa all about it.”